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The War Against Police

By Rick Collins on Wednesday, July 16, 2014 �

When I got into law enforcement, the threat against cops seemed easier to see. Easier to discern. Gang bangers and Neo-Nazis wore their colors proudly. We were trained how to read the tattoos, dress styles and haircuts. As I became an officer working with gangs, I became more proficient and knowledgeable. I will openly admit, it�s fun for me to be able to look at someone�s tattoos and educate a new officer the history of every tattoo that person his wearing�especially if the individual is trying to tell the officer he has no gang history. More than once, a gang banger tried to tell an unfamiliar officer he wasn�t �banging,� saw me, and knew the gig was up. I can say proudly, the investment in my training and education has been well spent.

I learned early on the way my relationship with �bangers� and cops, �You do what you do, I gotta do what I do.� Those words will always haunt me. Always. They were a warning by a banger that had just been released from prison. On one hand, he was telling me he respected the job I had to do. He and I were part of a �game.� If I caught him, I win, but he wasn�t going to make it an easy win. If, however, he ever caught me �slipping,� he would win. That part he didn�t have to say. His face was saying it all. I promised I would try to never be caught slipping.

Should I be surprised gang bangers hate cops? Of course I shouldn�t. We�ve been watching this �game� play out since at least the birth of urban street gangs during the prohibition. As they have grown, they have also been popularized and glamorized. With that glamorization, they have become mainstream. For my generation, that popularity reached a climax when the LA-based gangster rap group NWA hit the airways with �F* the Police.� I didn�t know a single upper middle-class suburban white kid that didn�t own it. We sympathized with the anti-establishment mentality expressed from these hardcore �straight outta Compton� poets. We, too, knew a good day meant that we didn�t �even have to use our AK.� Not to be out done, another rap artist from LA, Ice-T, brought us the song �CopKiller,� a song that glorified the murder of police officers. �CopKiller� outraged Charleton Heston so much, he took to reading the lyrics at the Time Warner shareholders meeting. Using his celebrity, he persuaded the Time Warner board to drop the song from Ice-T�s �Body count� album.

Now, law enforcement faces a new threat. That new threat comes from those that view us as a threat, not because we are trying to stop their criminal enterprises, arrest someone for a warrant, and keep a gang from victimizing the weak. The new threat is coming from a growing fringe that sees cops as a loophole to the Posse Comitatus Act. Falling prey to the �if I read it on the internet, it must be true� mentality, this community is now prepared to take up arms against cops. Some are looking for a fight, some are hoping for a fight, and, as we saw in Las Vegas, some want the fight.

Over time, I have grown annoyed by those trying to bait cops on YouTube. You know those videos. Those guys that go out strapped and pace the streets (at least, I picture them pacing. I really don�t know) with a GoPro or other type of camera at the ready, waiting for the officer to pull up and ask to talk to them. Then, they excitedly tell the officer they are just out walking the street exercising their rights, quote case law, refuse to provide ID, and the entire time, try to get the officer to escalate the situation. In their minds, they are completely justified teaching the officers how to do their job, at the same time imaging they are going to have the next video to go �bird flu� viral. I often wonder if they ever consider what is going through the officer�s mind. The officer is responding to a call from dispatch because a neighbor called the police concerned seeing someone walking down the street armed. The officer is mentally preparing for the worst case scenario. When he comes on scene, instead of dealing with a mentally ill person, hell bent on killing everyone, he�s now has to deal with someone that just wants to be a jerk for views on YouTube. My biggest fear is one of these situations will, one day, start out as a battle of wills and end in a firefight.

The scenario that has played out in my mind is a poorly trained officer (or an officer with poor people and communication skills) shows up on scene, weapon drawn at the low ready, causing the armed citizen to feel threatened and drawing his weapon. Before cooler heads can prevail, shots are fired. Think I�m too far out there? Just last week, an open carry advocate in Georgia drew down on an other open carrier, demanding his ID�something police in Georgia can�t do.

When supporters rallied to the side of Cliven Bundy, many supporters, including the Bundy�s, were comparing the situation to those in Waco, Texas and Ruby Ridge, Idaho. No matter your opinion regarding those incidents, the actions that lead up to each or the actions of the officers involved, one thing is important to remember: These were situations when law enforcement officers were serving lawful orders of the court. I know some will compare this to the German solider in World War II �just following orders.� I beg to differ. One case involved a warrant, issued by a court. The other was a search warrant for illegal weapons. They weren�t marching women and children to their deaths in gas chambers, and the comparison is abhorrent. That is the same argument Timothy McVey tried to use to justify his bombing of Federal Building in Oklahoma City. It saddens me to think this may be the shared opinion of many in the pro 2A community.

While we in law enforcement mourn their deaths and the deaths of all our other brothers and sisters, like that of Officer Melvin Santiago who was gunned down in an ambush in Jersey City, New Jersey, some will roll their eyes, vexed with talk of �hero cops,� quick to remind that law enforcement isn�t even that dangerous of a job � statistically speaking. Statistics are a funny thing. Gun owners, as well as gun-grabbers, love to use them to win the argument. Haven�t we learned by now that statistics don�t tell the whole story?

When a neighbor tried to make the argument that logging was more dangerous than law enforcement, I hid my annoyance behind mocking laughter. I don�t know many loggers (in fact, I don�t know if I know any right now), but is logging so dangerous that they are being assaulted on and off the job, just because they are loggers? Are loggers getting killed when they are on their lunch break? Deaths in logging are usually results of accidents. Deaths in law enforcement are usually the result of felonious assaults. I�m not trying to minimize the hazards of logging, or fishing, or mining. They appear to be hard, dirty careers. Thanks to Mike Rowe and the Discovery Channel, I�ve seen the back-breaking work, and I know its not for me. However, when organizations like Earth Liberation Front attack logging sites, law enforcement officers are asked to put their lives on the line to protect the loggers.

Some look at SWAT teams as a new and growing attack on their civil rights. I don�t know if I ever thought I would see a time when those that so proudly display bumper stickers reading things such as �ACLU � American Communist Lawyers Union� are in the same parking lot as those with the �Fight crime � Stop the NRA� bumper sticker. However, that is what is being created by the fear of the �warrior cop.� Many seem to fear the practice of law enforcement agencies acquiring surplus military equipment. Wondering why their local police agency will ever need a MRAP. Take a moment after reading this article and watch a video as to how police in Texas used their MRAP to disable Ron Lee Haskell�s car. Here was a man that had already killed, and was on his way to kill more people. To protect the community and the officers, two armored vehicles kept him pinned in place. The use of armored vehicles was the best and right decision. The worst thing about any law enforcement incident comes at the end. We get all the time we want to be critical of a decision an officer had a split second to make. It is so easy to say the decision was made because he is a �thug,� �full of rage,� or �tripped on power.� Seldom does anyone stop to think that the officer may have made the decision based on �training� or �prescribed tactics.�

As I finish, I know I�m not going to �make friends,� convince, or change the minds of many. I get that. Maybe we as officers are to blame, or maybe people look at the current president and believe local LEO is the first phalanx in his war against them, their gun rights and their civil rights. For whatever reason, cops have become the enemy at the gate, and people are ready to go to war. Those who once stood with law enforcement, when Charleton Heston stood in front of Time-Warner�s board and shareholders, have now turned their back on cops. Ice T and Ice Cube, who once glorified the beating and killing of cops, are now portraying it on television and movies.