My Broad + Liberty Crime Beat Column: Is There A War On Cops?

As Philadelphia Weekly has changed publisher and editor and gone tu sei pazz, as we say in my Italian American neighborhood in South Philly, I moved my Crime Beat column over to Broad + Liberty.

Nearly every Philly cop I speak to claims there is a war on cops.

While acknowledging that most Philadelphians support the police, cops complain about a vocal segment of the public that demonizes them, and a criminal element that feels empowered to assault and too often murder them with impunity. Cops truly believe they are easy targets due to their lack of political support from both the city and the media at large.

I reached out to Pennsylvania State Senator Mike Regan. Not only is he the Chairman of the Law & Justice Committee in Harrisburg, he’s also a retired U.S. Marshal.

Is there a war on cops?

“It’s so unfortunate to see the spike in the number of police officers who are senselessly killed, and my heart goes out to those grieving families,” Senator Regan replied. “There is no question that there are individuals and groups among us who seek out police officers to attack simply because they wear a badge and uniform. What does not help the situation is when our own Governor points the finger at police and marches at a rally with people carrying signs that say, ‘Blue Lives Murder’ — with his security detail of Pennsylvania State Troopers forced to walk along side of them.”

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

Paul Davis: Is there a war on cops? (broadandliberty.com) 

Heather Mac Donald: There Is No Epidemic Of Racist Police Shootings

Heather Mac Donald, (seen in the below photo), the Thomas W. Smith fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of The Diversity Delusion and the War On Cops offers a piece tin National Review debunking the idea of an epidemic of racist police shootings.   

The Democratic presidential candidates have revived the anti-police rhetoric of the Obama years. Joe Biden’s criminal-justice plan promises that after his policing reforms, black mothers and fathers will no longer have to fear when their children “walk[] the streets of America” — the threat allegedly coming from cops, not gangbangers. President Barack Obama likewise claimed during the memorial for five Dallas police officers killed by a Black Lives Matter–inspired assassin in July 2016 that black parents were right to fear that their child could be killed by a police officer whenever he “walks out the door.” South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg has said that police shootings of black men won’t be solved “until we move policing out from the shadow of systemic racism.” Beto O’Rourke claims that the police shoot blacks “solely based on the color of their skin.”

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demolishes the Democratic narrative regarding race and police shootings, which holds that white officers are engaged in an epidemic of racially biased shootings of black men. It turns out that white officers are no more likely than black or Hispanic officers to shoot black civilians. It is a racial group’s rate of violent crime that determines police shootings, not the race of the officer. The more frequently officers encounter violent suspects from any given racial group, the greater the chance that members of that racial group will be shot by a police officer. In fact, if there is a bias in police shootings after crime rates are taken into account, it is against white civilians, the study found.

The authors, faculty at Michigan State University and the University of Maryland at College Park, created a database of 917 officer-involved fatal shootings in 2015 from more than 650 police departments. Fifty-five percent of the victims were white, 27 percent were black, and 19 percent were Hispanic. Between 90 and 95 percent of the civilians shot by officers in 2015 were attacking police or other citizens; 90 percent were armed with a weapon. So-called threat-misperception shootings, in which an officer shoots an unarmed civilian after mistaking a cellphone, say, for a gun, were rare.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/white-cops-dont-commit-more-shootings/

You can also read my Crime Beat column Q&A with Heather Mac Donald via the below link:

www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2017/07/my-crime-beat-column-war-on-cops.html 

My Washington Times Piece On Why The War On Cops Is A War On All Of Us

The Washington Times published my piece on the war on cops:

As a writer, I’ve gone out on patrol with police officers, accompanied narcotics squads on drug raids, observed detectives investigating murders and other crimes, and I’ve interviewed police commanders and commissioners in station houses and police headquarters.

I’ve witnessed how police officers are treated with suspicion, spite and scorn by some. But I’ve also witnessed crime victims and frightened citizens who were relieved and comforted by an officer’s presence.

There is a growing anti-cop campaign in the country that unfairly labels all police officers racists, crooks and murderers. The campaign includes public rants, violent protests, excessive lawsuits, political posturing and unflattering portrayals in popular culture. And too often, this anti-cop crusade leads to the murder of a police officer, as we’ve seen in New York, San Antonio, Washington D.C., and other cities around the country.

According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund’s preliminary mid-year officer fatalities report for 2017, there was a 30 percent increase in police officers killed in line of duty compared to the same time period last year. As of June 30, the report reveals that 65 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty, a rise from 50 officers killed in the line of duty during the first half of 2016.

… Considering this dangerous and tragic trend, one begs to ask the question — is there a war on cops?

Who better to ask than Joseph Wambaugh, a former detective sergeant and 14-year-veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, as well as the author of classic police novels such as “The New Centurions” and “The Choirboys,” and true crime classics such as “The Onion Field”?

“Not a war,” Mr. Wambaugh replied. “But a guerrilla action by partisans of the left who primarily control the media, and those who live and die immersed in identity politics.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

  

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/19/war-on-cops-is-a-war-on-all-of-us/

FBI Report Finds Officers ‘De-Policing’ As Anti-Cop Hostility Becomes ‘New Norm’

Valerie Richardson at the Washington Times offers a piece on an FBI report on “de-policing.”

An unclassified FBI study on last year’s cop-killing spree found officers are “de-policing” amid concerns that anti-police defiance fueled in part by movements like Black Lives Matter has become the “new norm.”

“Departments — and individual officers — have increasingly made the decision to stop engaging in proactive policing,” said the report by the FBI Office of Partner Engagement obtained by The Washington Times.

The report, “Assailant Study — Mindsets and Behaviors,” said that the social-justice movement sparked by the 2014 death of 18-year-old Michael Brown at the hands of an officer in Ferguson, Missouri, “made it socially acceptable to challenge and discredit the actions of law enforcement.”

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FBI spokesman Matthew Bertron said the study was written in April.

“Nearly every police official interviewed agreed that for the first time, law enforcement not only felt that their national political leaders [publicly] stood against them, but also that the politicians’ words and actions signified that disrespect to law enforcement was acceptable in the aftermath of the Brown shooting,” the study said.

As a result, “Law enforcement officials believe that defiance and hostility displayed by assailants toward law enforcement appears to be the new norm.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/4/fbi-report-officers-de-policing-anti-cop-hostility/ 

'Pure Chaos' On Sansom Street In Philadelphia As Killer Goes On Rampage

Aubrey Whelan a the Philadelphia Inquirer offers a piece on the pure chaos that a killer caused when he shot police officers and bystanders.

Nicholas Glenn strode up Sansom Street just before midnight with a 9mm Ruger in his hand. 

In his back pocket was an envelope with a feverish, rambling letter inside, and two words scrawled on front.

"DOOMED PEOPLE." 

It was Friday night, and down the street at the Maximum Level Lounge, the door was open and the drinks were flowing. A few blocks away, a young woman and her boyfriend pulled up to her apartment. Philadelphia Police Sgt. Sylvia Young, a 19-year veteran of the force, parked her squad car at the corner of 52nd and Sansom. Her shift was almost over. 

Glenn, a man with a long criminal record and an apparent grudge against law enforcement officers, walked up to Young's squad car and fired 18 rounds into the window.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20160918__Pure_chaos__on_Sansom_Street_as_killer_goes_on_rampage.html