Category: Policing

Crime Without Consequences

by · Sep 1, 2020 5:57 pm

The extent of arson and thuggish violence in Portland, Oregon has become so extreme that the state’s Governor, the clueless Kate Brown, has asked sheriffs’ offices from around the state to help out.  The answer seems to be a loud “no.”  One Sheriff, Clackamas County’s  Craig Roberts, explained, through a spokesperson, that in Portland “it’s about changing the policy [of no consequences for rioting], not adding resources.”

Roberts explained:

The same offenders are arrested night after night, only to be released by the court and not charged with a crime by the DA’s Office. The next night they are back at it, endangering the lives of law enforcement and the community all over again.

What else could he say?  When the political leadership has spent years painting police as the problem and hooligans as the heroes of “free speech” (and free stuff, we now see from the rampant looting), the police would have to be self-hating fools to heed a call like Gov. Brown’s.  (H/t to PowerLine).

Riots, Arson, Policing and the Election

by · Sep 1, 2020 12:39 pm

Bret Stephens is an especially insightful writer for, of all things, the New York Times.  His column yesterday asks some questions the country very much needs to ponder:

Can the left be honest that the tragedies unfolding today in American cities are as much the story of insufficient policing as they are of abusive policing? Does it get that “law and order” is a precondition to civil liberty, not an impediment to it? Is it willing to say that the American founders who bequeathed us the institutions of liberal democracy should be honored, not despised? And does Joe Biden have the nerve to stand up to the extremes in his own party, or does he just mean to appease them?

His piece makes other painful points as well.

Continue reading . . .

A Unique and Thoughtful View on Race and Policing

by · Aug 23, 2020 12:24 pm

Jim Copland of the Manhattan Institute has something to teach us from a personal perspective.  He begins his article:

We can’t talk about policing in the United States without talking about race. It’s personal to me. I’m white. But I’m married to a black woman, and we’re the proud parents of a biracial son who, as he grows up and navigates American life, will face challenges that I never had in my own youth. He’s nine years old now and only barely beginning to wrestle with questions of race and identity. Yet as he matures into adulthood, he’s more likely to have encounters with police than I have been. These encounters are more likely to include some police use of force than if he were white.

But Jim’s perspective leads him to think and not just emote.

Continue reading . . .

Grace Under Fire

by · Aug 12, 2020 10:27 am

Being chief of police in a city with a council having anti-law-enforcement leanings has never been easy. It has gotten especially tough this year. Seattle Chief Carmen Best has impressed me as one of the few public officials in the two largest Pacific Northwest cities to have a cool head on her shoulders.

Chief Best resigned yesterday following votes by the city council to cut the department budget, including her own salary, and reduce the police force,” Deanna Paul and Dan Frosch report for the WSJ. The council’s actions are supposedly “part of an effort to reform policing,” in a bizarre parody of the word “reform.” Continue reading . . .

Are Riots Caused by Police or by Rioters?

by · Aug 11, 2020 12:44 pm

You would think that question answers itself, but the Left’s dismissive belligerence in lying about the causes of rioting is so persistent that, in some quarters, it has taken hold.  Thus, it was only last week that Portland’s mayor was telling us that it was the introduction of federal agents (to protect federal property like courthouses), not the hoodlums who’ve spent weeks bringing violence and disorder to his city, that were the real cause of Portland’s continuing problems.

As the Wall Street Journal explains today, this was all nothing more than the usual aggressive tripe.

Continue reading . . .

BLM Mob Converges on Home of Seattle Police Chief

by · Aug 3, 2020 4:10 pm

The Chief of Police in Seattle, a lady named Carmen Best, is a longtime member of the force.  I know very little about her.  I do know that she broadly shares the liberal perspectives of the leadership of that city, as one would expect of a chief of police.

Still, she has shown a spine, and an understanding that vandalism, rioting and arson are not acceptable.  This has not made everyone happy.  So they did what any “peaceful protesters” would do.  They showed up in force at her house.

Cross the mob and expect a visit.  If there’s a difference between this and how La Cosa Nostra operates, it’s too subtle for me.

Continue reading . . .