Wednesday Links

8:50 here.
This shooting was not okay and I clearly did not say that it was okay! Nor did I say that I was better because I have a gun which I didn’t usually carry when not at work. I won’t say off-duty because cops are by NYS Penal law never off duty and MUST take action where crimes are concerned. You surely don’t understand what it was like to walk in my shoes and I am certain that you don’t have the courage to do what I did for 22 years especially for what they paid us. I served in the Gulf War because I signed up for ROTC to get me through college. When my reserve unit was activated, I had just weaned my daughter and had to leave her with my husband to ship off to a no man’s land. I never though that when I signed up for the reserves that I would actually have to go to a war zone. But I did and didn’t complain because I made the decision to do reserve duty. When I returned to work I made an effort to ensure that I didn’t view my working environment as war zone because that would be detrimental to the city that I served. Many cops do though and that goes back to their biases. Believe it or not, the NYPD are most highly trained cops in the country. We have Departments come from all over the world to model what we do. That may be a sad state of affairs for the country, but it is what it is. There is always room for improvement. I clearly stated that situations like the taking of this childs life must be reviewed to see how both civilians and officers lives can be preserved in future incidents. I guess you didn’t read where I said that so many times I hesitated in using my firearm, giving a perp the benefit of the doubt, only to find out that the perp was armed and could have taken my life. Everyone, cops included have the right to self- preservation. The majority of the officers killed in the last couple of years have been African American or Latino. It might be because we give the benefit of the doubt and don’t see the communities where we work in the same way as white officers. Our families live in these communities. Most of the cops that get shot via friendly fire are also people of color. I support 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement who as an organization has spoken out about police shootings and other issues concerning policing in communities of color. The former Prseident Eric Adams is now serving in the state assembly and trying to address some of these issues. I as did many other law enforcement officers worked on his campaign because we care about our communities. Other volunteers in the organiztion go out into communities of color to train kids on how to respond when interacting with police in various situations. It is a shame that this has to be done but this is a reflection of a broader societal issue. So please YOU stop the madness with the stupid slogans like “city issued gun instant courage” and do something to help like I did for 22 years and am still doing!

Most police officers do not get up and come to work thinking “I think I’ll kill a black kid today.” There might be some out there who do, but they are few and far in between. The problem is that many officers coming into the city to work from suburban areas are not used to dealing with diverse communities and have no social interaction in urban communities. They tend to view urban communities of color as ” the other.” It is true that most of them would be more hesitant to draw a weapon in a white community on a white perp because they subconsciously relate to the white perp as brother, son, sister, father, cousin etc… and therefore give them a benefit of the doubt that may buy the perp an extra second or two which could be life altering. Imagine if the officers in the Bronx actually realized that Amadou Diallo actually had a wallet or that this mentally ill child had a brush and not a gun. That one or two seconds hesitation could have saved lives. On the flip side, as a retired African American officer, I have often hestitated in situations where if I hedged the wrong bet, my life could have easily been taken. Like many of my white co-workers, I was raised in a middle class neighborhood but I socialized with people of color and I do identify with the people that I cross during the course of my tour. I have come across white co-workers who were socialized around people of color or in urban environments and you can tell because they are much more comfortable in communities of colors. These issues can be addressed by recruiting city kids while they are in high school to join the Department and of course raising the salary. In this particular case I don’t think that the officers were wrong, although the whole thing is extremely disturbing. Dealing with EDP’s – Emotionally Disturbed Person’s is difficult and we rely heavily on the information given by family members. I don’t make excuses for “bad cops” or their bad decisions but what would you have done? Now that doesn’t mean that the Department doesn’t need to review policy regarding EDP’s to see what type of new technology or tactics might assist in future similar situations. I thought that my co-workers were wrong in the Diallo, Dorismond, Stansbury and other cases but I would have probably done the same in this one because I’m sure you’ve all heard before the saying “I’d rather be tried by twelve than carried by six.”

2:09 wins, hands down. That is astute, I am glad to be your neighbor. It is entirely possible to acknowledge the complexity of this situation, and deny the easy templates people are wanting to push over it.

This kid was not innocent! He was (it seems at this point) purposely acting in a manner that would get him shot!

However you slice it, twenty bullets (about 5 bullets per cop) is fucking outrageous, and 5:15 is right that it wouldn’t go down like this in a nice/white neighborhood.

There are no vigils about black-on-black crime. Al Sharpton could not give a rip about black-on-black crime, because he is busy exploiting the race war!

The whole situation is so ugly. Ugly on all sides, ugly because it shows us all how far we have to go. All of us. Police, citizenry, everyone.

Here’s an idea. Stop doing things that would actually make you a crime suspect. It could actually lead to a productive life.

The mother said he had a gun. Should the police have run up on him to figure out that he was running to brush his hair versus running to fire a weapon. Not the most practical.

Don’t get me wrong. I regret the taking of an innocent life. However, the police are not MAKING people behave in a criminal (or otherwise resembling a criminal) manner. This goes for hooded guys on street corners, disrespectful kids on the subway, or anyone else who thinks they can act a fool and just “get a break.”

I am NOT comfortable with it. As a black man and a lifelong resident of BS, I have seen this pattern over and over. If a cop or a white person kills a black resident, people are suddenly up in arms, but if a black person kills a black person, then people shrug their shoulders and move on. It’s a damn shame that when this hypocrisy is highlighted, people respond by (1) assuming that you don’t live in the community (12:24) and (2) that I am comfortable with a cop shooting and killing a mentally-ill teenager (12:36).

By the way, how is the community pressing for answers?

And 11:07, what did you mean by “murders by police officers more rephrensible than murders by thugs”?