Ever wonder why Democrat mayors are never held accountable for the police departments they are in charge of…? Probably not, because the conversation about police reform has been so effectively hijacked by media propagandists, the idea of holding the person who actually is accountable accountable gets lost in the mess.
The thing to keep in mind about the establishment media is that when it comes to policing, the goal is not reform or change, the goal is to manufacture chaos in predominantly black neighborhoods. The goal is to keep things simmering, to keep the pressure on, because — as I laid out here — this is how you keep a population from rising into the bourgeois middle class.
The left despise the middle class. We’re complacent and prefer to be left alone, prefer to govern ourselves… That attitude is a direct threat to the left’s worship of centralized authority, conformity, and its unceasing desire to organize every aspect of everyone’s life.
Regardless, as I have mentioned ad nauseum, even before the tragic death of George Floyd while in police custody, I am not a worship-the-blue guy. I was in favor of criminal justice reform when the feckless Barack Obama was unable to get it passed, I am in favor of it now that President Trump has.
At the same time, I do recognize that police shootings of unarmed people (including blacks) have dropped dramatically over the past few years, as has the black incarceration rate, I also recognize there are a lot of poorly trained police out there and am grateful for the cameras that have made this clear.
I mean, if the State is going to give a man a gun and the legal authority to use it, a few bad apples are not acceptable. We should push for the same perfection in police officers that we do from those who route, pilot, co-pilot, navigate, maintain, and repair passenger planes.
So how is it that these persistent problems persist?
A big problem is the media’s ongoing protection racket of Democrats and their cancerous public unions.
Earlier this week, I went back and listed every controversial death of a black man at the hands of the police over the past few years.
Without judging in any way, without inserting my opinion of whether or not deadly force was justified, I made a list of incidents that raised eyebrows. Below is that list, where you will find the name of the victim, the city and state where the death occurred, and the political party in charge of the police department at the time…
- Bayshard Brooks – Atlanta, GA – Democrat
- George Floyd – Minneapolis, MN – Democrat
- Breonna Taylor – Louisville, KY – Democrat
- Manuel Ellis – Tacoma, WA – Democrat
- Atatiana Jefferson – Fort Worth, TX – Republican
- Javier Ambler – Austin, TX – Democrat
- Tony McDade – Tallahassee, FL – Democrat
- Dion Johnson – Phoenix, AZ – Democrat
- Jemel Roberson – Chicago, IL – Democrat
- Botham Jean – Dallas, TX – Democrat
- Stephon Clark – Sacramento, CA – Democrat
- Jordan Edwards – Dallas, TX – Democrat
- Eric Garner – NY, NY – Democrat
- Laquan McDonald – Chicago, IL – Democrat
- John Crawford, Beavercreek, OH – Republican
- Freddie Gray – Baltimore, MD – Democrat
- Tamir Rice – Cleveland, Ohio – Democrat
As you can see, out of 17 incidents, 15 happened in cities or town where a Democrat mayor was in charge of the police department.
Let me back up just a bit…
You see, there are two very good reasons our country believes in civilian oversight of institutions like the military, national guard, and police… We don’t want unelected people in charge of institutions given legal authority to use violence. That would be a disaster. But it is also about accountability… By putting the president in charge of the military, an elected sheriff in charge of sheriffs’ departments, and mayors in charge of police departments, by way of the ballot box, voters are able to have a say in how they are policed.
That is how this is supposed to work, and it makes perfect sense, no?
But it doesn’t, and this is deliberate.
Let me put it this way…
Have you ever noticed that when a scandal hits the military, the media either attack or circle the wagons to protect the president? If the president is a Republican and an Abu Ghraib happens, the president is vilified. If the president is a Democrat and a Benghazi happens, the president is protected. Either way, responsibility for the military is laid at the feet of the president because the president is in charge of the military, is the commander-in-chief. As a population, we understand the buck stops with the president when it comes to the military.
This is a good thing. This is a healthy thing.
But have you also noticed that when a scandal involves the police department, the media always-always-always blame an entity that does not exist known as “The Police.”
According to our fake media, the non-existent “Police” are the problem, this phantom organization called “The Police” is to blame. Some unicorn called “The Police” must be reformed.
There is no “Police” in this country. We do have some 18,000 separate police departments — 18,000! And each of those departments is its own separate organism and each of those departments is controlled by an elected official — and it is this elected official who is supposed to be held accountable for the police department he or she is in charge of.
But that never happens in this country… When a Minneapolis police officer felt comfortable jamming his knee into George Floyd’s throat for over eight minutes while he was being filmed, no one held the person in charge of the Minneapolis Police Department accountable — Democrat Mayor Jacob Frey (pictured).
Democrats have run the Minneapolis police department for nearly 50 years — but who was blamed for the George Floyd incident? This entity that does not exist called “The Police.”
Further, riots and protests broke out all over the country against “The Police,” even though the other 17,999 police departments have nothing to do with Minneapolis.
Meanwhile, the guy who’s actually in charge of the police, who is supposed to be accountable for a police department comfortable with jamming a knee into a helpless man’s throat for more than eight minutes while he’s being filmed, is not held accountable at all.
Over the weekend a police officer shot a fleeing man twice in the back, a black man. This happened in Atlanta. Who was blamed? This straw man called “The Police,” but not the person who is actually in charge of the police, Democrat Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.
Democrats have run Atlanta — this is not a typo — since 1879… Not 1979 — 1879… That’s 141 years.
And I could go on, and you know I could go on, and this is why reforms that must happen, don’t… We’re all screaming about “The Police” when we should be screaming about “The Mayor.” But the left and the media have deliberately distracted us from that in order to protect Democrats.
Another problem are police unions. Thanks to collective bargaining, public unions are obscenely powerful, which makes it as obscenely difficult to fire a lousy police officer as it is to fire a lousy teacher. But again, because the media adore the public unions that flood Democrat politicians with campaign cash, we don’t talk about this, we just scream at the unicorn.
This is all by design…
This is all deliberate…
You blame “The Police” and the Democrats who run these cities stay in power while policing suffers, the cities they police suffer, crime goes up, opportunity flees, poverty, anger, and bitterness simmer among a population whose road the middle class has been closed.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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