THE LIBERALS ARE COMING AFTER THE COPS

The Left's coming war on cops

 

By Patrick Buchanan

 

Williston Herald 

June 10, 2020

 

Newly painted in huge yellow letters on 16th Street, just north of the White House, is the slogan: "Defund the Police."

That new message sits beside the "Black Lives Matter" slogan, also in huge letters, painted there at the direction of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.

She renamed that section of 16th Street "Black Lives Matter Plaza."

Still, the messages are less ominous than the chants of protesters in New York after the takedown that resulted in the death of Eric Garner.

Protesters then chanted of the NYPD: "What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want it? Now!"

While this sudden campaign to defund and dismantle city police forces seems an absurdity, it is actually part of a thought-out radical program that has gained momentum since the sadistic public execution of George Floyd in Minneapolis two weeks ago.

Consider. On Sunday, nine members of the city council, a veto-proof majority, voted to disband the Minneapolis police department. Asked if he would support the council decision, Mayor Jacob Frey hedged, "I do not support the full abolition of the police."

As the crowd jeered and booed, the mayor walked away alone.

The idea of defunding police departments has caught fire, and liberal politicians are scrambling to get in front of their radical constituents. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has announced that he will reallocate up to $150 million from the LAPD budget to social programs.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says he will be transferring $1 billion: "We will be moving funding from the NYPD to youth initiatives and social services."

In two weeks, there has been a sea change in attitudes toward police, with not a few coming to share the hard left's hatred. While the criminal elements burned cop cars and showered police with bottles, rocks and bricks, even "peaceful protesters" were calling the police fascists and racists.

Two decades ago, the NYPD were celebrated "first responders" who ran toward the collapsing twin towers, many never to come back. Funerals of the cop heroes were televised. Those days are gone.

Indeed, after two weeks of seeing police decried on nightly TV as racist oppressors of African Americans, cops must realize that they are reviled and detested by some of the countrymen they have sworn to protect.

What will happen now is predictable, as it has happened before.

To pander to the militants on the left, liberal politicians will devise new restrictions on cops and more severe punishments for infractions, treating the police as potential threats to civil and constitutional rights.

The "Ferguson Effect" will take hold. Cops will back off from confronting the lawless and violent. Criminals will see an opening to seize opportunities. The urban poor who look to the police as their only protection will stay inside and lock their doors. And small businesses, realizing the cops may not be there, will sell and move out.

Where is this leading?

According to former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, not only did New York law enforcement officers suffer many injuries in the riots, hundreds of cops, seeing how they are regarded and were treated by many whom they protect, are preparing to leave the NYPD.

As the Democrats' "police reform" bill is debated on the Hill, Republicans will largely stand with the police and Attorney General William Barr, who said Sunday that while there is racism in America, there is no "systemic racism" in the nation's police departments.

If there were, it would be an indictment of the Democrats, who have run most of our great cities for decades.

As it rises in prominence, the issue of defunding police will divide the Democratic Party more than the GOP.

For while the hard left sees cops in ideological and class terms as racist and fascist, the right, by and large, sees the police as the last line of defense again the anarchy we saw erupt when there were not enough cops in New York and D.C. to control the mobs looting Fifth Avenue and Georgetown.

And this, too, is likely to become a forever war in America. For it is almost inevitable that we are going to see more violent collisions between white cops and black suspects, collisions that result in deaths.

For every large urban police force has daily encounters with black male criminals, who commit a disproportionate number of violent crimes. Some will end with dead cops, and the others with dead criminals.

President Donald Trump has taken his stand with the police.

It is Joe Biden who has the problem. For while Democratic mayors are unlikely to join a campaign to abolish their police forces, Biden is going to have to tell his Bernie Bro and socialist constituents that their ideas for getting rid of police departments are ridiculous.

Monday, Joe made a start. He said that defunding cops is off the table.

THE POLICE REPRESENT WHITE SUPREMACY ..... THAT'S WHY EDUCATORS ARE KNOWN AS EDUCATED IDIOTS

L.A. Teachers’ Union Calls for Elimination of School Police Force

 

By Joel B. Pollak

 

Breitbart

June 9, 2020

 

The United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), representing teachers and support staff in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), called Monday for the elimination of the 400-member police force protecting schools in the district.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the teachers’ union made the announcement at an event with Black Lives Matter leaders, and called the move a step toward dismantling “white supremacy”:

Leaders of United Teachers Los Angeles said Monday they support a movement to eliminate the Los Angeles School Police Department, a force of about 400 that serves the L.A. Unified School District and accounts for about $70 million of the district’s $7.9 billion budget.

We have to dismantle white supremacy. We must … defund the police and bring in the mental health services that our students need,” said Cecily Myart-Cruz, the incoming president of UTLA, which represents about 30,000 teachers, nurses, counselors and other staff in the school district.

…

The union leadership endorsement and public announcement during a labor news conference with Black Lives Matter Los Angeles bring an influential voice to what is certain to be an intense debate over school safety.

Leaders of the police union voiced dismay. School police officers are often called upon to break up fights, keep the peace in gang-ridden school districts, and deter school shootings, which have been a worry in recent years.

The Times reported in February 2018 that school police are part of the district’s strategy at preventing mass shooting events. The Times added that many parents in the district supported the presence of armed police officers on school grounds, adding: “School shootings are rare, and schools generally are safer than the neighborhoods they’re in.”

UTLA’s Facebook page indicates that it has been enthusiastically supportive of Black Lives Matter protests.

Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow died in the Parkland high school shooting in Florida in 2018, warned Monday that the Black Lives Matter movement was encouraging school districts to cut ties with police forces.

“If you live in a Democrat-run city, get your kids out now. Because I can tell from personal experience, if your kid gets murdered in school and you have a problem with it, they’ll just call you racist and double down,” he wrote.

POLITICIANS COMPETE TO LEAD THE RUSH TO BLAME COPS IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG

New York politicians are putting cops in an impossible situation 

 

By Post Editorial Board

 

New York Post

June 7, 2020

 

Chris Monahan, who heads the NYPD Captains Endowment Association, is usually more circumspect than the leaders of the sergeants’ and patrolmen’s unions, so it’s notable that he just wrote his members about the impossible dilemma they’ve been placed in during the current disorders.

His e-mail warned that if cops go “hands off” on looters and unruly protesters, “you will be assaulted by them.” But if they go “hands on,” then “you will be assaulted by our elected officials.”

In short, the politicians “do not have your back and will use you as a political pawn!”

He’s absolutely right. On the one hand, officials from the mayor on down don’t want mayhem. On the other hand, the politicians compete to lead the rush to blame cops if something goes wrong.

Officers and commanders were told to enforce a curfew — and then be flexible about it. By Saturday night, apparently, they were being told not to enforce it all. Then the mayor canceled the last night of it.

And when police do arrest someone, illegal protesters and even most looters are released as soon as they make it in front of a judge. Heck, the Manhattan DA’s Office on Saturday even declined to press charges against a man arrested for allegedly vandalizing St. Patrick’s Cathedral — the suspected getaway driver for two women who defaced the church with graffiti. (He may still get indicted, pending further, active investigation.)

Nearly all those charged with lawbreaking get to walk — even as multiple cops have been suspended or reassigned over charges they misbehaved (or failed to supervise properly) during the chaos.

Mayor Bill de Blasio hasn’t been the worst cop-basher over the past week. He noted, quite rightly, that police are operating in an environment where hundreds of them have been wounded — many because of direct and potentially deadly attacks.

But he’s getting worse. On Sunday, he had the gall to complain about police not wearing masks — when they’re in heavy gear, including helmets, because of the danger.

“It’s painful to people because it feels like [cops are] flouting the rules,” the mayor whinged. This, when even the most peaceful protesters have been flagrantly flouting the social-distancing rules and the whole “staying home saves lives” thing, not to mention those who gleefully defied the curfew — even after warnings that doing so enables the looters and violent anarchists.

And now de Blasio is rushing to appease the “Defund the Police” lunatics, vowing to cut the NYPD budget to fund youth programs, among other things. You can bet that’s just a taste of what’s coming.

Who will suffer most if you cut the budget of the NYPD? Poor neighborhoods where the crime rate will climb, as progressive politicians punish the very black and Hispanic residents whom they claim to want to help.

New York City is supposed to start reopening on Monday — with its commercial areas universally boarded up (often over broken store windows) and the boards covered with graffiti. And that’s not even the biggest roadblock to restoring normalcy.

No: The bigger problem is that the men and women of New York’s Finest, who work tirelessly to protect the public, are all distracted by the need to look over their shoulder for the next attack by a politician. 

WHAT WILL THE DEFUNDERS TELL LAW-ABIDING RESIDENTS - THAT THEY ARE NOW ON THEIR OWN?

Defunding the NYPD is madness after the thousands of black lives they have saved 

 

By Heather Mac Donald

 

New York Post

June 8, 2020

 

“How lovely when we see the police! They are my friends.”

So burst out an elderly lady attending a police-community meeting in the Bronx several years ago. Her voice is representative of the thousands of senior citizens, middle-aged workers, and small business owners who fervently support the New York Police Department. These vulnerable New Yorkers want more police presence, not less; they view officers as their only protection against predation.

What will the activists seeking to defund the NYPD tell these law-abiding residents — that they are now on their own?

The people who live in high-crime neighborhoods understand more about policing than the anti-cop agitators. Since the early 1990s, when the homicide toll in New York City was more than 2,000 a year, tens of thousands of minority lives have been saved, thanks to the NYPD’s fiercely responsive, data-driven policing.

That policing model, known as Compstat, holds precinct commanders ruthlessly accountable for crime in their jurisdiction; it has driven homicide down 86 percent from 1990, to 319 in 2019. Most of the lives that would have been lost had killings remained at their early 1990s levels have been black and Hispanic.

At the same time that the department has lowered crime to levels that would have been viewed as unimaginable three decades ago, it has radically cut its use of lethal force. In 2018, the NYPD recorded the lowest number of shooting incidents since records were first kept in 1971 — 35 — and the lowest number of subjects shot and killed: five. Four of those suspects were threatening officers with guns or knives; the fifth, reported as being armed by bystanders, pointed what appeared to be a gun at the responding cops.

New Yorkers who live in gang territory still fear lawlessness, however, and implore the police to bring order to the streets. At the 41st Precinct in the South Bronx a while back, residents complained repeatedly about large groups of youth hanging out on corners.

“There’s too much fighting,” one woman said. “There was more than 100 kids the other day; they beat on a girl about 14 years old.” A middle-aged man asked: “Why are they hanging out in crowds on the corners? No one does anything about it. Can’t you arrest them for loitering?”

These citizens know that out of such street chaos, violence can erupt. A 2015 Quinnipiac poll found that 61 percent of black voters in New York City wanted the police to “issue summonses or make arrests” in their neighborhood for quality-of-life offenses, more than the percent of white voters.

Back at the 41st Precinct, the president of a local mentoring program begged for a police watchtower in his neighborhood. Whenever he hears gunfire, he said, he runs toward the shooting, terrified that one of his three children has been struck. If the police go away, these hard-working people will feel abandoned, and they will be right.

The claim that better funded social services can deliver public safety is baseless. New York City tried that experiment for decades and it was a resounding failure. No city spent more on welfare, yet crime continued to rise. Only Compstat policing reversed the chronic lawlessness of New York.

It is equally preposterous to say that social services are underfunded. The city spends a whopping $8.2 billion on social services, constituting more than 8 percent of the city’s budget. That $8.2 billion does not include all the social workers larded throughout the Department of Education.

Fewer cops and depleted NYPD funding mean longer response times and less training. Cops who cannot get back-up quickly when confronting a violently resisting suspect are more likely to escalate their own use of force.

Defunding the police will hurt the very people its proponents think they’re helping.

10 RULES FOR POSTMODERN RIOTING

Is it deemed more or less evil to wear a mask while hitting a store owner over the head with a two-by-four?

By Victor Davis Hanson 

American Greatness
June 7, 2020

The peaceful protests against the terrible brutalization and death of George Floyd soon either themselves turned violent or, in many cases, were hijacked by Antifa operatives and opportunistic looters or both. It was certainly not as alleged a “small number” who destroyed swaths of New York, Santa Monica, Minneapolis, or Philadelphia.

After watching hours of such footage of mayhem and destruction, one can glean a few rules that the rioters apparently followed quite religiously. And they are often disconcerting if not bizarre. Here is a sample of 10.

Rule No. 1: Selfies

In our culture of narcissism, rioters seemed intent on obsessing with their smartphones, often to capture their criminality with as many selfies as possible, as well as recording friends’ crimes in action. It was almost as if looting was envisioned as performance art.

Was the logic that there is always time to steal and burn, but not so much to capture oneself momentarily breaking and entering for posterity? Why would anyone take time to record the act of lighting up a store or kicking in a window?

Is the postmodern assumption that when one posts these revolutionary acts on Facebook, some Hollywood talent agent in his Malibu home gym might spot the scene in cyberspace of shattering glass or defacing the Lincoln Monument and Skype his interest therein in a future actor? Are there stars born among the flames?

Rule No. 2: Masks

Apparently, one may hate the state and its rules of law and order, but government still has a point when it comes to a 1-in-1,000 chance of dying from COVID-19—and in the prime of life.

Obviously, there are some dangers associated with lighting fires, blowing up cars, tossing Molotov cocktails into police vehicles, and entering a small business where the owner could be armed—but why take additional needless risks? So some rioters wear masks to protect both their own health and that of their fellow looters—and I suppose the health, too, of the cops and any innocent bystanders they happen to assault.

Is it deemed more or less evil to wear a mask while hitting a store owner over the head with a two-by-four? Moreover, the ubiquity of masks seems to denote multiple uses: hiding identity while protecting the lungs from the toxic fumes one ignites? Masks not worn en masse while damning capitalism seem exempted acts in a way that masks worn by single individuals while trying to make a living are not.

What will be the governors’ new narrative about masks and social distancing: if you wish to protest, even loot or burn, the state grants you permission to violate quarantine, but only as long as you don’t try to reopen an urgent care or a florist shop?

Rule No. 3: Race

In a crusade to end racial hierarchy, some protestors seemed adamant in practicing racial separatism and spacing. Young, white, single, childless, upper-middle-class kids, perhaps many living in their parents’ basements, are usually stigmatized as Pajama Boys. So often they compensate by posing as hardened deadly revolutionaries. But, in fact, they also consider themselves precious assets and therefore more equal than others. They have professional futures and with them resumes that a felony indictment might sidetrack. So they ease back in the shadows to plot grand strategy on social media and issue periodic orders where to assemble and which store to torch.

As clever and privileged propagandists, they certainly will be sure that inner-city looters are caught on national television carrying out high-definition televisions, while to the rear they provide the sloganeering, the edgy graffiti, and the bricks and bottles for the foot-soldiers they order callously into battle. In Minneapolis, it was reported that mostly white looters destroyed a black-owned business purportedly on behalf of the Black Lives Matter.

Does Antifa practice proportional representation and disparate impact? And if not, why not?

Rule No. 4: Staples

Why do not the soldiers of a revolution that seeks to bring social justice to the underclass that is deprived of the very staples of daily existence, focus on life essentials? Why instead do they hunt Louis Vuitton bags, Nike sneakers, iPhones, and laptops? Are these treasures edible? Is the point to destroy capitalist triflings or to run off with them? What is the logic of officials in major cities who plead with Walmart to stay in the inner-city, after its unguarded stores were left to be attacked and ruined?

Rule No. 5: Class

Those in academia, Hollywood, and the media count on rioters to be arrested for the cause, and they certainly will generously provide electronic bail and moral encouragement on Twitter. The heroism of those with two-by-fours and rocks will be championed from the Upper West Side and Menlo Park. The elite Left asks only of the looters to keep clear of Palos Verdes Estates and not enter Westchester.

After this is all over, it is assumed that their present empathy in a moment of revolutionary fervor does not mean that the children of those arrested will school with those of their abettors. Looters and rioters will not be welcomed as noble peasants in the sacrosanct feudal keeps of Presidio Heights, and they should not expect a dinner invitation from the Hollywood Hills. The Malibu manor walls of Cher and Barbra Streisand will not come down with the revolution. Cyber-solidarity between left-wing rich and poor, white and black, ends when the last rock is thrown and the final match is lit.

Rule No. 6: The Children

Demonstrators never know who is among their arrested. Take, for example, New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio’s daughter, who sympathizes with the looting her dad seems to fuel. Or Keith Ellison’s councilman son who praises Antifa and wants to abolish the police. Perhaps consider Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s daughter, who was supplying Antifa with tips about the arrival of the National Guard. Or U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) daughter, who was shouting that the United States is racist from the barricades.

On the battlefield, the police chief, the mayor, the state attorney general, and the governor are strangely seen as allies, so much so that some seem willing to give over their Twitter-warrior children for the cause, at least momentarily in zero-bail states.

Rule No.  7: Because . . . Reasons

What was the purpose of setting St. John’s Church on fire, breaking into a Lincoln automobile dealership, or defacing the World War II monument and the Lincoln Memorial? Was all that the best way to pay homage to the memory of George Floyd and express discontent over his death and brutalization while in Minneapolis police custody?

Was there burning and stoning because the progressive authorities did not quickly enough charge the police officers responsible for Floyd’s death with murder and manslaughter? Was there rioting because the mayor of Minneapolis was a reactionary or the governor of Minnesota was a right-winger plotting to protect the offending officers? Did the arsonists have no confidence in Minnesota’s attorney general, who now oversees the case, and in the past had provided support and empathy for Antifa?

Rule No. 8: Media
 

Nothing is more embarrassing for journalists on camera, while assuring America of the demonstrators’ passivity and lawfulness, than to see flames lick the top of their television monitors.

Why would one clumsily leave an empty Adidas box at the feet of a sympathetic reporter to be captured on live television as he waxes on about the calm in the night? Why would a PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor assure us that Donald Trump is an incendiary figure for having suggested looters were anarchists and then send along a photo of demonstrators defacing monuments with anarchist symbols as proof Trump was wrong?

What sums up the media in this moment? In the midst of the chaos, MSNBC hires Lisa Page, of the renowned but now mostly  fired FBI legal all-stars dismissed from the Robert Mueller dream team, and the heroine of the Strozk-Page text trove psychodramas.

Rule No. 9: Stuff Happens

There seems to be no such thing as “collateral damage.” Rioters consider themselves the human equivalent of Obama-era drones in flight over Pakistan that cannot possibly distinguish the enemy from civilians. If one errs and brutalizes a woman in a wheelchair, stomps a confused trucker trying to deliver gas, renders an elderly woman bereft of her local pharmacy, or bludgeons a middle-aged woman in front of her store, then it seems to be chalked up to “s—t happens.” or in a more revolutionary sense, “Omelets cannot be made without breaking eggs.”

Are rioters fans of the protocols of the rogue cops who feel they can beat up the arrested to advance law and order—as they burn, loot, and beat to show us our shared future of racial ecumenicalism and tolerance?

Rule No. 10: Mixed-up Messaging

Finally, the media advises rioters to be careful not to do anything stupid. Like over-burning or hyper-torching, perhaps?

Susan Rice warns us that there are purportedly all sorts of Russians out there armed to the teeth. Homeowners are written off as the deluded who mysteriously believe that they have a right to stop looters battering in their doors. A few nutty bakers and liquor store owners are armed and they are deranged enough to shoot when a rioter merely shatters their glass or politely borrows some whiskey.

Yet most store owners and capitalists are expected not to be armed with “automatic” weapons in front of their stores defending “property” over “lives.” So in bullying fashion, looters focus on the weak and unguarded, not the strong and dangerous. We are told that some reactionaries in America still believe in that ludicrous idea of “private property” and “brick and mortar” and they actually assume that saving what they themselves have stolen from the people is worth dying for. And so they are usually avoided. Looters and rioters remind us of the Neanderthal logic that deterrence discourages the cowardly while laxity whets his appetite.

Finally, were these riots and the destruction of shops inadvertently designed to show us that we need more gun control? Were these to be arguments for disbanding the police? Were the defacements of the World War II monument and the memorial to the black veterans of the Civil War supposed to be advertisements for the need for “unity” and “tolerance”?

Were the thefts from Nike stores to remind us of an impoverished barefoot nation? Or were the massed protests and shoulder-to-shoulder looting a planned scientific shock experiment to show us that social distancing had become outdated, or the lockdown was far past its prime, and the virus tired and in retreat?

Was the point of these Trump-haters to end the lockdown by massing without masks, and thereby jumpstarting the economy to get Trump reelected?

NOT HIDING THE FACT THAT GEORGE FLOYD WAS A CAREER CRIMINAL

Here are 18 minutes of remarks by Candace Owens that every American should carefully listen to



GoFundMe suspended Candace when she raised $205,000 for a Birmingham, Ala. cafe owner who messaged “Mr. Floyd was a thug, didn’t deserve to die but honoring a thug is irresponsible” after he watched the above video.

Candace is America's most hated black woman ... by blacks that is..

FLOYD'S FUNERAL BECAME A 3 RING POLITICAL CIRCUS

President Trump came under heavy fire at the George Floyd Funeral

By Howie Katz


I watched the George Floyd funeral turn into a 3 ring political circus.

First, Congressman Al Greene gave a fiery speech highlighted by his absurd scream that "George Floyd's only crime was that he was black!"  If you recall, Greene was the first member of Congress to call for the impeachment of President Trump.

"George Floyd's only crime was that he was black!"  Never mind that Floyd was arrested for passing a counterfeit $20 bill and that the autopsy showed he was using fentanyl and meth.  Then there is the fact that Floyd was an ex-con convicted twice of armed robbery.

Could it be that Greene was misled by the two murals on the altar which depicted Floyd with angel wings and a halo over his head?  Yeah, right. 

Then Rev. William Lawson told the funeral attendees that "The first thing we have to do is clean out the White House!'

Then Al Sharpton, who was chosen (or chose himself) to deliver the eulogy, tore into Trump.  He mentioned "wickedness in high places" repeatedly, a veiled reference to the President.  Sharpton accused Trump of showing indifference over Floyd's death, and sending police a signal of impunity.

Sharpton shouted, "You [Trump] sit now trying to figure out how you're going to stop the protest, rather than how you're going to stop the brutality.  The signals that we're [ the government] sending is that if you are in law enforcement, that the law doesn't apply to you." ... "When they have the highest level of government that excuses it. When some kids wrongly start violence that this family don’t condone and none of us do, the president talks about bringing in the military. But he has not said one word of 8 minutes and 46 seconds of police murder against George Floyd."

Sharpton also accused the President of using the bible as a prop when Trump appeared in front of the riot-damaged St John's Episcopal church.

With Sharpton's sordid history, he should have been the last person invided to the funeral.  

From Freedom Wire, this is the real Sharpton:

Sharpton caught his big break in the late 1980s by stoking racial tensions over a rape hoax.

A New York teen, Tawana Brawley, falsely accused multiple white men of raping her in the woods of Wappingers Falls, New York. She claimed, after the assault, the men wrapped her in a feces-covered bag covered with racial slurs.

After a lengthy investigation, a grand jury found that the allegations were a hoax.

If Sharpton had a conscience, he would have apologized to the men who were falsely accused.

But this is Al Sharpton we are talking about.

Sharpton was ordered to pay $65,000 to one of the falsely accused men, Steven Pagones, for defamation.

The money was paid to Pagones not by Sharpton himself, but by his supporters.

The Tawana Brawley incident isn’t the only time Sharpton has inflamed racial passions. He has a long history of similar acts.

Sharpton rallied rioters with cries of “No Justice, No peace!” He referred to Jews as “diamond dealers,” and this rhetoric lead to the death of a Jewish man, Yankel Rosenbaum, in what would be dubbed the “Crown Heights Pogrom.”

The Washington Examiner recounted the incident when it reported that in August of 1991, Sharpton led a “violent, murderous, anti-Semitic rioters on a pogrom in Crown Heights. They terrorized that Jewish community for nearly four days, during which 183 people were injured and the innocent visiting Australian University academic Yankel Rosenbaum—brother to one of us—was murdered in cold blood amid cries of ‘Kill the Jew! Kill the Jew!”

And from mrc TV:

It seems as if, every time there is a death which can be re-engineered into a racial bias incident such as Michael Brown, for instance, that  MSNBC host Al Sharpton finds a way to give the eulogy. But, in a proven case of bias which took place twenty years ago, the future advisor to President Obama and NYC Mayor DeBlasio was nowhere to be found. That is because Sharpton was one of the main causes of the hatred which led to fire bombing of Freddy's Fashion Mart. 

He didn't toss the firebomb, but the anti-Semitic and racial bias which came out of his mouth and out of the mouths of other while in his presence, produced the massacre as assuredly as if the fire was set with his hands.

On December 8, 1995,  Al Sharpton incited the violent fire-bombing of the Jewish-owned Freddy's Fashion Mart in Harlem, causing the the deaths of Angelina Marrero, Cynthia Martinez, Luz Ramos, Mayra Rentas, Olga Garcia, Garnette Ramautar, and Kareem Brunner - the seven victims of the massacre. There was an eighth death, Roland James Smith, the man who burned the store down.

It all started as a rent dispute in the summer of 1995:

The United House of Prayer, a large African-American church, was also a major landlord in Harlem. They raised the rent on Freddy's Fashion Mart, a Jewish-owned clothing store which had operated from the same Harlem location for over 40 years. In turn, Freddy's had to raise the rent on its sub-tenant, a black-owned record store. A landlord-tenant dispute ensued. As he has done so often in his life, Al Sharpton turned this non-racial economic dispute into a racial conflict.

At the time, Sharpton claimed he wasn't involved in the protests, that he was only present to mediate - but, the evidence suggests otherwise.

In the 20 years since Freddy's, Sharpton hasn't shown any change.

Remember the controversy surrounding the Duke lacrosse team?

Without any facts, Al Sharpton declared that these "rich white boys” had attacked a ”black girl,” and he warned that, if arrests were not made immediately, there would be no peace. He further claimed, "this case parallels Abner Louima, who was raped and sodomized in a bathroom [by a New York City police officer] like this girl has alleged she was.... and just like in the Louima case, you have people here saying she fabricated it.” It was later proven that, indeed, she had totally invented the story and all charges against the defendants were dropped.

In the cases of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, Al Sharpton falsely declared the shooters both racists and guilty without seeing any evidence.

A MODEST HINT OF SANITY

by Bob Walsh

Last night the Stockton city council took up the mayor's proposal to require that all people wear masks in Stockton when they are in public areas in the city.  The city council voted HELL NO unanimously.  I am impressed.  Surprised, but impressed.

KENTUCKY WANTS TO GIVE FREE HEALTH CARE TO IT'S CITIZENS

But Only The Black Ones


by Bob Walsh


Andy Beshar is the (White) Governor of Kentucky.  He was formerly the Attorney General so presumably he is a lawyer and has some basic knowledge of the law.  Maybe


Yesterday he proposed that the state should pay for health care for all of the Black residents of Kentucky.  


This is clearly illegal and a violation of various state and federal laws.  It seems unlikely IMHO such a thing will make it as far as an actual legislative proposal.  So, why did he say it.  


My guess is that, like most politicians, he is a whore and believes he will gain political power by pandering to a 10% block of his state's voters and appear to be "woke" and a pimp for BLM and similar organizations.


Same Shit, Different Day.  Welcome to Democatic-Socialist America. 

PROPOSAL TO CLOSE SOME CA STATE PRISONS GAINING STEAM

by Bob Walsh

A combination of various factions is leading to a greater probability that two prisons in the formerly great state of California will be shutting down in the foreseeable future.

The Governor's May budget proposal suggested a budget of $13.4 billion for the CDCr.  Closing two facilities is expect to save the state maybe $400 million.  

Nobody is saying which prisons may be on the chopping block but it is widely known that San Quentin is the facility that costs the most to operate per prisoner.  In addition the real estate if very valuable, though demolition costs would be considerable.   Also, some parts of the prison are registered historic sites and could not be demolished.  

Interestingly enough the governor is NOT in favor of defunding the police.  He is, however, a big proponent of moving many of the current responsibilities of the cops away from them and to other groups, i.e. mental health professionals and social workers.  I guess if some woman is having the shit beat out of her by her registered domestic partner she would be OK with hanging around until a rapid response marriage counselor arrives on scene.  And if she isn't, she damn well should be. 

STOCK MARKET REPORT

by Bob Walsh

The NASDAQ Index sneaked above 10,000 for the first time in forever yesterday, and then closed slightly below that magic mark.  It will almost certainly close above 10,000 sometime this week.  The DOW is still hovering above 27,000.  I know my own deferred comp account has now picked up fully to where it was before the plague struck. 

I am sort of hoping that the economy in general and the unemployment numbers will take off like a rocket in the next couple of months.  That will certainly not hurt Trump's reelection prospects.  Unfortunately I think that probably half or more of the restaurants in the country will be permanent casualties.  We will know better when the PPP money runs out next month and the folks who are making more money not working will have some choices to make.

I don't know how it is in your neck of the woods but around here there has been another run on ammo and gun sales are WAY up.  In fact the last time I went to one of my acceptable alternate ranges to shoot my new 9 mm carbine the guy behind the counter remarked that they were damn near out of ammo at the store.  Also reloading components are getting difficult to get just now.  Fortunately I have enough to weather the store.  It pays to be prepared.  

EDITOR'S NOTE: The riots are great for the gun businesses.

PLAGUE REPORT UPDATE FROM STOCKTON

by Bob Walsh

Well, the traffic is now more or less back to normal.  Bummer.  It was nice having almost nobody out on the road.  The malls here in town are mostly open again.  

I had the distinct honor and privilege of contributing to the full employment of the dental profession here in town again.  I had to have a broken off tooth removed by a dental surgeon.  That was just so much fun.  (Not.)  Fortunately Green Death and Percocet take care of the pain reasonably well.  

My favorite local gun store / range is still not back to normal operation.  I would like to take my nephew out and show him some basic marksmanship skills.  As far as I am concerned that is kind of like learning how to hammer a nail, operate a power drill-driver or unjam a garbage disposal.  Basic life skills.  

After all day at the range on Sunday I could actually walk Monday morning when I rolled out.  I admit I did not expect that.  Out of the eight stages I had two real good ones and only one fairly poor one, so I can't complain there.  (First stage, second or third shot, I hit a good guy.  He was probably a democrat so I don't feel TOO bad about it, but it did cost me 5 points.  Life is hard.)

Stockton is preparing to implement a MUST WEAR A MASK IN PUBLIC PLACES ordinance.  It hasn't been voted on yet but it looks like it is likely to pass when / if it is voted on.  So far in the formerly great state of CA only in Yolo County are you REQUIRED to wear a mask when you are out in public.  (I wonder if a Halloween mask would be acceptable?)

Now both my favorite long-term (30 year) watch repair shop and my recently acquired backup shop have gone the way of the dodo bird.  As one of the watch techs at my old place remarked to me, many people now do not carry a watch, their phone tells time for them.  Generational changes. 

CHICAGO. IT'S MY KIND OF TOWN

by Bob Walsh

On May 31 the Democratic Republic of Chicago had 18 murders in the one day, a record in the last 60 years, maybe longer.  Almost all of the victims were Black.  (The State Crime Lab statistics only go back to 1961.)  The 9-1-1  call system got 65,000 calls that day.  On a normal day they get 15,000.  

Over the entire 3-day weekend there were 85 shootings and 24 murders total.

Last year the city saw 492 murders.  In 2018 they had 561, more than both NY and LA combined.

It is speculated that much of the violence was enabled by the fact that the cops were chasing rioters and looters and not doing routine patrol duties.

Defund the police.  That will solve everything.  Then the world will be all unicorns and rainbows.  (Or not.)

LOOKING AT DEMOCRAT-SOCIALIST #2

by Bob Walsh

A couple of newish names have surfaced in Senile Joe's search for a VP nominee who has a stronger pulse than he does, which is almost everybody on the planet who is officially alive.

The two possibilities are Keisha Lance Bottoms, the mayor of Atlanta, and Florida Representative Val Demings.  Both are being vetted right now.

Bottoms was the first big-city mayor to endorse Senile Joe and has come out strongly against looting and destruction but in favor of peaceful protesters.  She volunteered for Biden in Iowa and gave a very nice off-the-cuff speech when a precinct captain was a no-show.  She is 50 years old, compared to Senile Joe's 117 years.

The 63-year old Demings was the head of the Orlando P D from 2007 to 2011 and both the Florida NAACP and the Florida FOP like her.  She was one of the house impeachment managers in the recent LETS HANG TRUMP show.   Ellen Degeneres likes her too.

Senile Joe is said to very much want a VP picked by early August, so he can go back to his long winter's nap and not have to bother with things like campaigning, reading cue cards and expressing ideas that are much beyond EAT, SHIT, SLEEP, REPEAT.

Stacey Abrams and Susan Rice are still on the short list too.  They also fit the basic minimum qualifications in that they have a pulse, are not White and typically urinate sitting down.

TRUMP'S CONSPIRACY THEORIES ARE GOING TO KILL THE REPULICANS

By Howie Katz

Trump's latest conspiracy theory is about the 75-yeat old man pushed to the ground by Buffalo cops and it's plain nuts!

“Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?”

That's what Trump tweeted on Tuesday.  He forgot to mention that the pool of blood was fake theatrical blood.

Joe Biden may be senile, but Trump has lost his mind.  This sort of shit is going to take him and the Republicans down.

POLICE UNION SLAMS DE BLASIO AND NYPD BRASS

The Police Benevolent Association, the union that represents about 24,000 NYPD cops, accuses Mayor Bill de Plasio and the NYPD brass of sacrificing cops

By Howie Katz

NYPD officer Vincent D'Andraia was arrested Tuesday and charged with assault, criminal mischief, harassment and menacing for shoving a woman to the ground and calling her a stupid fucking bitch during a George Floyd protest in Brooklyn,

 After D'Andraia's arrest, PBA president Patrick Lynch released the following statement:

"Once again, Mayor de Blasio and the NYPD brass are sacrificing cops to save their own skin.  They created the failed strategy for managing these demonstrations.  They sent police officers out to do the job with no support and no clear plan. They should be the ones facing this mob-rule justice."

We don't know what provoked D'Andraia to shove the woman down, but charging him for doing so seems to be a knee-jerk attempt to show the mobs that NYPD does not tolerate police brutality.

Cops all over the country are being made sacrificial lambs to appease the BLM rabble.

SANDINISTA AND NOW BLM-LOVING MAYOR WILL HAVE BLACK LIVES MATTER PAINTED ON NY STREETS

De Blasio: NYC will paint, rename streets to honor Black Lives Matter

 

By Julia Marsh and Natalie Musumeci 

 

New York Post

June 9, 2020

 

The city will paint its roadways and rename streets in each borough to honor the Black Lives Matter movement, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday.

“It’s time to do something officially representing this city to recognize the power of the fundamental idea of Black Lives Matter, the idea that so much of American history has wrongly renounced, but now must be affirmed,” de Blasio said during his daily City Hall press briefing as he was surrounded by a group of social justice activists.

The mayor said that the city proposal calls for the Big Apple to “name streets in each borough, and to paint the words on the streets of this city in each borough at a crucial location, one of which will be here near City Hall.”

De Blasio said his administration will work with city leaders, advocates and the City Council to identify the four other locations in the Big Apple to support the movement.

“What will be clear [is] the street name and on the streets of our city is that message that now this city must fully, fully deeply feel, and this nation must as well, that black lives matter,” said de Blasio.

The announcement comes after thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets of the city for more than a week to protest the May 25 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis cop, as well as police brutality.

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer told The Post that she proposed the idea to the mayor about two days ago to paint the roadway in front of the municpal copmplex at 1 Centre St. with the words “Black Lives Matter.”

“We actually have the paint and we have people ready to paint. I called the mayor’s office and I said we’d like to do it,” said Brewer. “I said ‘I got paint, I got artists, I got architects, I got volunteers, I even got a picture of what it looks like.’”

Brewer said the painted street will look like the “Black Lives Matter” paint job that Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser had done last week.

Bowser had “Black Lives Matter” painted in large yellow letters on the street that leads to the White House, and also designated the square in front of Lafayette Park as Black Lives Matter Plaza.

Iesha Sekou, the founder and CEO of Street Corner Resources, an anti-violence organization, said during de Blasio’s press briefing, “We don’t want to have to name a street, but I’m glad that we are.”

Sekou added, “We also want to make sure that police are not allowed to act the way we’ve been seeing.”

“We’re looking very much forward to holding the police accountable for their behavior,” she said.

AFTER 7 YEARS ON THE JOB, NJ UNIVERSITY JOINS THE MOB BY FIRING EX-COP FOR A SHOOTING 26-YEARS AGO

Rowan University won't retain emergency official who killed teen in 1994 police shooting

 

By Jim Walsh

 

Cherry Hill Courier-Post

June 9, 2020

 

GLASSBORO, NJ - Rowan University will not renew the contract of an emergency-response official who killed a black youth while working as a policeman 26 years ago, the school's leader said Monday.

University President Ali Houshmand noted "the national spotlight on social justice and police matters" in announcing the decision regarding Peter Amico, director of Rowan's Office of Emergency Management.

The decision came as an online petition demanding Amico's dismissal grew to almost 3,000 signatures on Monday night.

 

 "Given the circumstances of Amico’s employment prior to serving at the university and the necessarily painstaking evaluation of Rowan’s institutional commitment to racial justice and equity, Amico’s employment will be discontinued," Houshmand said.

 

In a letter to the Rowan community, Houshmand noted Amico had fatally shot a 14-year-old Glassboro boy, El Tarmaine "L.T." Sanders, while employed as a Glassboro police officer in 1994.

The shooting resulted from "a split-second decision" while Amico was responding to a domestic call, the letter said.

Amico, then 29, said the youth was running toward him with a knife at the time of the shooting outside Sanders' Poplar Street home.

A Gloucester County grand jury did not bring charges in connection with the boy's death and the U.S. Department of Justice took no action after an investigation into whether the boy's civil rights were violated, Houshmand noted.

 

"The Sanders family and many others protested and rallied in their pursuit of justice, but the legal system left them without further recourse," said the president's letter.

It noted the shooting "led to pain and division in our community."

Amico, who led the emergency-management office since 2013, could not be reached for comment late Monday evening.

Rowan's trustees had been expected to consider a new contract for Amico at its meeting Wednesday.

According to Houshman's letter, Amico began working with Rowan as a contractor in September 2008 in the Department of Public Safety. He was hired full-time in 2010, one year after retiring from the borough police department.

In his director's role, he was responsible for preparing and responding to emergencies such as natural disasters and other crises, the letter said.

A Change.org petition demanding Amico's ouster described his employment by Rowan as "a revolting insult to the Sanders family and to African Americans everywhere."

James E. Johnson, an independent educator who launched the petition, called Monday's announcement "the right decision."

"It demonstrates that, going forward, black lives will matter at Rowan University," Johnson said.

"As a university, we believe black lives matter," Houshmand said in his letter. "We are looking hard at our own organization, our policies, structure and culture."

SOMETHING TELLS ME THIS COP WILL SOON BE UNEMPLOYED

Dash-cam video shows struggle before NJ officer shoots unarmed black man during traffic stop

 

WTVD

June 9, 2020

 

TRENTON, New Jersey -- Police dash-cam video and 911 audio out of New Jersey shows the struggle that happened before a police officer shot and killed a 28-year-old unarmed man.

 

Maurice Gordon was shot dead on the side of the highway just days before and more than 1,000 miles away from where an officer used his knee to hold down George Floyd, ultimately killing him and sparking nation-wide protests.

The newly released audio and video from New Jersey were recorded May 22 and May 23.

Dash-camera video shows a New Jersey State Trooper, later identified as Sgt. Randall Wetzel, in a physical struggle with Gordon. Then six shots ring out and Gordon falls to the ground, fatally injured.

The chain of events leading up to Gordon's death began with his friend in Poughkeepsie, New York, calling 911 around 3:30 a.m. saying Gordon had just left his house "looking panicked." He told the dispatcher Gordon said "something about having a paranormal experience."

Law enforcement officers then had five separate run-ins with Gordon, including the fatal shooting on the Garden State Parkway, according to ABC News. Twice they found him in a disabled car and twice they pulled him over for speeding.

The final time Gordon was pulled over was May 23 around 6:40 a.m. Trooper Wetzel said he pulled over Gordon because he was driving at speeds over 100 miles per hour.

During the traffic stop, Gordon's car became disabled and would not start. Wetzel called for a tow truck and offered to allow Gordon to wait in the back of his patrol car.

Gordon is later seen on video leaving the back of the cruiser. He gets in and out of the back of the car multiple times.

"I keep telling you to do not get out of the car, but you keep hopping out," Wetzel told Gordon at one point, explaining that he was worried about him getting hit by a passing car.

"Why do you keep taking your seat belt off?" Wetzel asked Gordon. "Just keep it on in case someone hits us from behind."

At one point, Wetzel asked Gordon if he wanted to wear of face mask. When Gordon said he did, Wetzel got out of the vehicle and walked around to the rear passenger door to hand him one, according to the video footage.

But once he opened the door, Gordon unbuckled his seat belt and bolted from the vehicle. Wetzel can be heard repeatedly yelling at Gordon to get back into the car. A rear-facing camera inside the vehicle captured the two men struggling outside before Gordon appears to break free and attempts to open the driver's side door and get into the driver's seat of the patrol car.

Wetzel deployed pepper spray on Gordon and pulled him away from the vehicle. As they tussled at the rear of the patrol car six shots rang out. The footage shows Gordon falling to the ground.

Wetzel is seen in the video handcuffing Gordon and yelling "shots fired" into his mobile radio and asking for EMTs to come to the scene.

"Our team of independent investigators has been working hard to complete the initial investigation into the shooting death of Maurice Gordon as quickly as possible. That initial investigation is now complete," New Jersey State Attorney General Gurbir Singh Grewal said in a statement before releasing the videos and 911 tapes.

Grewal said the investigation is continuing and that the evidence will be presented to a grand jury.

Gordon's mother said he was a student at Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie. He was studying chemistry.

"He's a person always into books and reading and studying and working as well," his mother told ABC News. ''He's always contributing to society."

US FACING RUSSIAN VETO

Russia rejects US drive for permanent Iran arms embargo

 

By Edith M. Lederer

 

Associated Press

June 8, 2020

 

UNITED NATIONS — Russia’s foreign minister is accusing the Trump administration of unleashing a politically motivated campaign against Iran and is calling for “universal condemnation” of the U.S. attempt to get the U.N. Security Council to impose a permanent arms embargo against the Islamic Republic.

Sergey Lavrov said the United States withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and six major powers and now has no legal right to try to use the U.N. resolution endorsing the deal to indefinitely continue the arms embargo, which is set to expire on Oct. 18.

In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council circulated Monday, the Russian minister said statements by U.S. State Department officials that the Trump administration doesn’t plan to resume its commitments under the nuclear deal but plans to invoke rights allegedly deriving from the resolution endorsing it are “ridiculous and irresponsible.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft have said extending the arms embargo against Iran is a top priority for the United States.

Craft told a press briefing Friday that she had shared a draft Security Council resolution imposing an indefinite arms embargo on Iran with Russia and with Western council allies Britain, France, Germany and Estonia, and hopes to give the draft to the rest of the 15-member council “pretty soon.”

But she said first she wants to talk to ambassadors and “make sure everyone understands that we are committed to making certain that the U.N. Security Council does not allow this to expire in October.”

“What I say to people is on Oct. 18 … do we want Russia selling weapons to Iran? Do we want China selling? Do we want anyone providing or selling weapons to Iran?,” Craft asked. “I’m stressing that Russia and China need to join a global consensus on Iran’s conduct. This is about not only the people of Iran but the people in the Middle East.”

But Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia has already make clear Moscow’s opposition to a Security Council resolution extending Iran’s arms embargo, which Russia could veto. He also said the U.S. has “no right” following its withdrawal from the nuclear deal to use the “snap back” provision in the 2015 council resolution, which automatically restores all U.N. sanctions against Iran that had been lifted or eased if the nuclear deal is violated.

Craft disagreed, saying the resolution “makes clear that the US retains the right” to use the “snap back” provision.

Tensions between Iran and the U.S. have escalated since President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018 and re-imposed crippling U.S. sanctions.

A year ago, the U.S. sent thousands more troops, long-range bombers and an aircraft carrier to the Middle East in response to what it called a growing threat of Iranian attacks on U.S. interests in the region.

The five other powers that signed the nuclear deal — Russia, China, United Kingdom, France and Germany — remain committed to it, saying the agreement is key to continuing inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and preventing Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons.

Lavrov’s letter went further in explaining Moscow’s strong opposition to an indefinite arms embargo and U.S. use of the “snap back” provision.

“We are proceeding on the basis that the United Nations should not become hostage to the political situation in the United States, which has decided to withdraw from the plan,” he said. “There are no valid grounds for raising in the Security Council the issue of an arms embargo against Iran.”

Lavrov said the nuclear deal and the Security Council resolution “form a single whole” and can’t be considered separately. And under Article 25 of the U.N. Charter, “the United States side is obliged to carry out the decisions of the Security Council, rather than undermine them through its unlawful actions,” he said.

Lavrov said international courts have held “that a party which disowns or does not fulfill its own obligations cannot be recognized as retaining the rights which it claims to derive from a relationship.”

The United States, having violated the Security Council resolution and declined to implement the 2015 nuclear agreement has therefore “forfeited the possibility” of using the “snap back” provisions, he said.

Lavrov called on the U.S. to stop undermining the nuclear agreement and the U.N. resolution.

He said Russia and “other responsible members of the international community will continue to make every effort” to preserve the nuclear deal.

“The United States must recognize that there are neither legal nor other grounds for its policy of using Security Council mandates to pursue its own selfish interests,” Lavrov said.

FIRST A COUPLE OF NY LAWERS FIRE-BOMB AN OCCUPIED POLICE CAR AND NOW A CALIFORNIA LAWER CALLS FOR THE MURDER OF COPS

LAPD investigating defense attorney who allegedly called for police to be murdered

 

By Bill Melugin

 

Fox 11
June 9, 2020

SAN GABRIEL, Calif. - A San Gabriel criminal defense attorney is under LAPD investigation after posts from his Instagram account called for police to be murdered offered free legal representation to anyone who kills a cop.

FOX 11 exclusively obtained screenshots of highly disturbing social media posts allegedly authored by attorney Mark McBride on Instagram.

In response to a post about police brutality, McBride’s account commented:

“It won’t stop until black people start murdering cops, which they should do often and with great relish. These cocksucking, low IQ, can’t get into law school jarheads need an asphalt nap, during which they’re bleeding out on the street where they’re shot down. I would have no problem with them. I would absolutely 100% defend to the death of any African American who picked off a cop or two. It’s time, it’s well past time.”

In a follow-up post, McBride allegedly wrote: 

“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve defended “terrorists”, sign me up pro bono for somebodies granddad putting a couple of hollow points between the eyes of these PTSD addled rednecks, I’d take one or two pro bono.”

“When we first saw the comments it was disgust, it was anger,” said Sgt. Jerretta Sandoz, Vice President of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents LAPD rank and file.

“There are so many good police officers in this country and to be painted with a broad brush and then threatened with bodily harm, just for wearing a uniform, it’s disheartening and disgusting.”

In a phone call with FOX 11, LAPD called the comments extremely disturbing and said an investigation was underway.

McBride didn’t return any of my calls, texts, or emails on Monday.

When we stopped by the Beverly Hills address his website lists as his law office, nobody there had heard of him and the owners of the property told me they do not lease out any space to anyone named Mark McBride.

We eventually found McBride in a small room at a house in San Gabriel where his bar license lists his current office location.

A very disheveled looking McBride came out of the room and shook his head yes when I asked him if he is Mark McBride.

When I told him who I was, and the story I was working on, he claimed to have not received any of my messages, told me he had nothing to say, then turned around, closed the door, and refused to make any further comment.

At no point did he deny authoring the posts.

State records show McBrides bar license is still active, though it has been suspended three times since 2018 for failure to pay child or spousal support.

Now, the LAPPL wants his license revoked.

“He should definitely be disbarred and he will be reported to the state bar,” Sgt. Sandoz said. “For threats, especially that vile, it’s disgusting, disheartening, and that person definitely needs to be reported and we will ensure there is a full investigation done, and that is underway.”

LAPD told FOX 11 they take these threats extremely seriously given the current climate, and the case will be investigated thoroughly.

WHO REPLACES THE POLICE?

BLM activists call for officers to be replaced with social workers, mental health advocates and homeless charities

 

By Mjlly Vincent 

 

Daily Mail

June 8, 2020

 

Black Lives Matter activists pushing to 'defund the police' have proposed plans to replace officers with social workers, mental health advocates and homeless charities.

Their chants called for widespread disbanding of U.S. police forces after Minneapolis councilors voted to abolish the city's police force in an historic move after days of protests over the killing of George Floyd during an arrest.

However supporters of 'defund the police' say their demands are not necessarily about eliminating police departments or stripping agencies of all of their money.

They say it is time for the country to address systemic problems in policing in America and spend more on what communities across the U.S. need, like housing and education. 

  

Among plans from activists to replace police are;  

__Mental health responders to attend mental health crisis in place of armed police 

__Street outreach teams, more shelters and affordable housing to help solve homelessness and stop the homeless from being criminalized  

__Traffic stops to be eliminated entirely, with traffic violations dealt with via. mail 

__Community members to attend domestic violence calls, to help intervene and establish long-term safety for the individuals 

__Specialized physical and emotional support for victims of sexual violence 

__Investing in prevention of sex trafficking to end economic and social conditions that lead to deeply rooted vulnerabilities  

__The legalization of marijuana to stop incarceration for the 'harmless' drug 

__Better handling of drug offences to stop 'criminalizing of communities of color' 

__Decriminalization of sex work and formation of an independent union to ensure individuals have insurance, child care and safety precautions 

__Restorative justice (meetings between victim and offender) to be used to deal with property crimes such as theft and burglary 

State and local governments spent $115 billion on policing in 2017, according to data compiled by the Urban Institute. 

Lisa Bender, president of the Minneapolis City council told CNN yesterday: 'I just stood with total of nine members of Minneapolis city council and we committed to dismantling policing as we know it in the city of Minneapolis and to rebuild with our community a new model of public safety that actually keeps our community safe.'

Bender said the city, with a billion dollar annual budget, had analysed 911 calls to determine what help people in Minneapolis were calling for, they found most people needed mental health services, health services, EMTs or fire services - not an armed police officer.

She added: 'Housing, health care, education, all of it together that helps keep our communities safe, and to really work with our community over the next year so imagine what that looks like to build that system, including everyone.

'In the past I've supported and attempted to and sometimes successfully moved funding out of the police department into community based safety strategies. So that is what I think about when I think about that ask is that instead of investing in more policing, that we invest in those alternatives as community based strategies.' 

US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for military budgets to be slashed alongside policing budgets to direct funds into education and health care 'preventing conflict to begin with'.

Speaking to The Hill Ocasio-Cortez said: 'The militarization of our police is enabled by the federal government. And I want everyone to draw a direct line between our police budget, and our defense budget here in the United States of America. Because we would not be giving local police departments who are under-trained a tank, if we didn't give the military too much money to have extra damn tanks lying around to begin with.

Ocasio-Cortez added: 'The same problems that we are seeing on a city council level, and on a city level, which are you have an entire city budget and half of that budget goes to policing and a shred to education, a shred to mental health services of crumb for hospitals, that is mirrored on the federal level. It is in the image of its creator.'

Activists acknowledge this is a gradual process.

The group MPD150, which says it is 'working towards a police-free Minneapolis,' argues that such action would be more about 'strategically reallocating resources, funding, and responsibility away from police and toward community-based models of safety, support, and prevention.' 

The group states on its website: 'The people who respond to crises in our community should be the people who are best-equipped to deal with those crises. Rather than strangers armed with guns, who very likely do not live in the neighborhoods they’re patrolling, we want to create space for more mental health service providers, social workers, victim/survivor advocates, religious leaders, neighbors and friends – all of the people who really make up the fabric of a community – to look out for one another'.

Adding that those who commit crime often only do so when their basic needs are not filled by other means.   

Minneapolis Police Chief Tony Bouza told the group: 'The idea of police as crime preventers is rubbish. By the time the cop appears the criminal has been formed and the crime has been committed .'

Speaking at a BLM protest today Congresswoman Ilhan Omar said: 'I will never stop saying, not only do we need to dis-invest in police, but we need to completely dismantle the Minneapolis police department, it is rotten to the root. And so when we dismantle we allow for something beautiful to arise. And that re-imagining allows us to figure out what public safety looks like for us.'   

Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza asked during an interview on NBC's Meet the Press: 'Why can't we look at how it is that we reorganize our priorities, so people don't have to be in the streets during a national pandemic?' 

The call for defending has been met by support from some lawmakers. 

Senator Cory Booker said he understands the sentiment behind the slogan, but it's not a slogan he will use.

The New Jersey Democrat told NBC's 'Meet the Press' that he shares a feeling with many protesters that Americans are 'over-policed' and that 'we are investing in police, which is not solving problems, but making them worse when we should be, in a more compassionate country, in a more loving country.'

Representative Karen Bass, a Democrat from California and chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said part of the movement is really about how money is spent.

'Now, I don't believe that you should disband police departments,' she said in an interview with CNN. 'But I do think that, in cities, in states, we need to look at how we are spending the resources and invest more in our communities.

'Maybe this is an opportunity to re-envision public safety,' she said.  

However the protesters rallying cry has also become a stick for President Donald Trump to use on Democrats as he portrays them as soft on crime. 

President Donald Trump and his campaign view the emergence of the 'Defund the Police' slogan as a spark of opportunity during what has been a trying political moment. Trump's response to the protests has sparked widespread condemnation. But now his supporters say the new mantra may make voters, who may be otherwise sympathetic to the protesters, recoil from a 'radical' idea.

Trump seized on the slogan last week as he spoke at an event in Maine.

'They're saying defund the police,' he said. 'Defund. Think of it. When I saw it, I said, `What are you talking about?' `We don't want to have any police,' they say. You don't want police?'

Trump's 2016 campaign was built on a promise of ensuring law and order - often in contrast to protests against his rhetoric that followed him across the country. As he seeks reelection, Trump is preparing to deploy the same argument again - and seems to believe the 'defund the police' call has made the campaign applause line all the more real for his supporters.  

However it does appear that the movement has already caused some major city Mayors to declare they plan to redistribute budgets away from police departments.  

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday that the city would move funding from the NYPD to youth initiatives and social services, while keeping the city safe, but he didn't give details.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti vowed to cut as much as $150 million that was part of a planned increase in the police department's budget.

A Minneapolis city councilmember said in a tweet on Thursday that the city would 'dramatically rethink how we approach public safety and emergency response.'

'We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department,' Jeremiah Ellison wrote. 'And when we're done, we're not simply gonna glue it back together.' He did not explain what would replace the police department.

A majority of the members of the Minneapolis City Council said Sunday they support disbanding the city's police department. Nine of the council's 12 members appeared with activists at a rally in a city park Sunday afternoon and vowed to end policing as the city currently knows it. 

Disbanding an entire department has happened before. In 2012, with crime rampant in Camden, New Jersey, the city disbanded its police department and replaced it with a new force that covered Camden County. Compton, California, took the same step in 2000, shifting its policing to Los Angeles County.

Generally, police and union officials have long resisted cuts to police budgets, arguing that it would make cities less safe.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union for the city's rank-and-file officers, said budget cuts would be the 'quickest way to make our neighborhoods more dangerous.'

'Cutting the LAPD budget means longer responses to 911 emergency calls, officers calling for back-up won't get it, and rape, murder and assault investigations won't occur or will take forever to initiate, let alone complete,' the union's board said in a statement last week.

'At this time, with violent crime increasing, a global pandemic and nearly a week's worth of violence, arson, and looting, `defunding' the LAPD is the most irresponsible thing anyone can propose.'