BARRY LEVINSON’S TAKE ON POLICE UNIONS IN AMERICA

Barry Levinson

I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Ring’s comments below about police brutality as demonstrated by the brutal beating death of Kelly Thomas. In that case it was the police who instigated the suspect’s reasonable reaction to flee based on a physical threat of violence against him.

However, I do not agree with Mr. Ring’s assessment of the increased militarization of the police as basically necessary in the face of greater criminal threats and fire power.

Former NYC Police Chief Bernard Kerik made a very scary statement in my opinion on the Megyn Kelly show a few days ago. He said any citizen that does not comply with a police command to be handcuffed for arrest no matter what the alleged crime should get the same physical response from the police. So if you are jay walking, selling individual cigarettes or some other minor infraction, the police should respond to that person the same way when they are trying to arrest a serial murderer for instance.

I could not believe the total lack of common sense by the former police commissioner to state that a single approach by the police is proper no matter the set of circumstances. This attitude by the police which seems to be getting more prevalent smacks of a police state where the citizens are the potential enemy of the police, rather than the people they have been sworn to serve and protect. This is the real danger in my opinion to the increased militarization of police departments. It is not simply the increased fire power, military style uniforms and equipment that they now possess but more importantly the growing police mindset that they are in a war zone with every person in the community a potential enemy. This attitude more than anything else has resulted in too many unnecessary deaths at the hands of law enforcement. Couple this with the lack of will by prosecutors and grand juries to hold those police officers responsible for their actions and we have the sad situation we are too often witnessing today.

Police Unions in America

The first thing we have to understand is that without the law, we have nothing. It turns into a situation of savage against barbarian, of the powerful against the powerless. It turns into a situation of dog eat dog, unrestricted, without restraints or consideration of anybody’s humanity. – Dr. Harry Edwards, POPSspot Sports Radio Interview, August 22, 2014 Police union spokespersons often suggest that media coverage of police actions is invariably negative. Where are the reporters when a cop performs a good deed? Whether or not the media is truly biased against members of law enforcement is debatable, of course, but as noted sociologist Harry Edwards points out, “without the law, we have nothing.” Given the penchant for many professional social commentators and activists to jump onto the latest anti-police brutality bandwagon with unequivocal pronouncements, Dr. Edwards’ measured response is helpful. There are a lot of reasons that common criticisms of […]

WWW.FLASHREPORT.ORG

It is now eight months since I wrote the above column. Since that time, we have had more horrific cases involving bad police actions including an officer who shot an unarmed man in the back, killing/murdering him. When did serve and protect become, judge, jury and executioner?

Why is it that there are too many officers willing to use deadly force when it is 100% not called for? Some say that these officers are very small in number. I say to all police union presidents and police chiefs, how many dangerous officers are acceptable? Could it be that the California Police Officers Bill of Rights (POBOR) and similar laws that hides criminal activity by on-duty officers from the public be a major problem? There are good officers but they need to start speaking out against the bad officers and the associated corruption. Those officers who remain silent in these instances are unfortunately part of the problem.

Here is another very real problem. How does the unsuspecting public know when coming into contact with an officer if he/she is getting one of the good ones or dangerous ones? The answer is we will never know until POBOR is repealed.

How many times have we heard a politician or a police chief after another ugly incident involving an officer then state that their officers need more training? Ladies and gentlemen all the training in the world will not make up for police officers with a lack of common sense, self-control, intelligence and a bad attitude about performing their job. Finally, for those few officers who chose law enforcement because they like to hurt people please explain how training will protect us from those bad apples? Please tell me police chiefs, police union presidents, city managers and city council members, how many sadistic police officers are acceptable to you and why are you doing precious little to get ride of those police officers? I know if you would be kind enough to respond you would probably belittle my last comment. Yet how many of you have spoken out against the many problems the public has with POBOR?

I report, you decide.

This entry was posted on August 15, 2014, 6:35 am and is filed under Government sponsored terrorism, The twighlight's last gleaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

#1 by Barry Levinson on December 16, 2014 - 2:39 pm

Anonymous now reads minds. He knows what the former police chief of NYC meant to say. One more time for those who are slow to understand simple common sense and common decency.

When a police officer uses life threatening force against a suspect for a non-violent misdemeanor office, the police officer is wrong. In the Eric Garner case, dead wrong.

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