What Happens When There Are No More Police?

A new attitude is becoming mainstream in leftist America. It is an anti-police, anti-ICE and anti-law-enforcement attitude. It is producing fell consequences.


The FBI states that in 2018, 55 police officers died as the result of felonious acts. Firearms were used to murder 51 of those officers. In 2019, through July 8, 24 officers have been shot to death.

Do you recall the Black Lives Matter video where the "protesters" chanted, "Pigs in a Blanket, Fry 'em like Bacon?" Or a second one, where New York "protestors" chanted, "What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want it? Now." (See https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Eric-Garner-Manhattan-Dead-Cops-Video-Millions-March-Protest-285805731.html.)

Now there's a new game in New York. When the police arrive to answer a call for assistance, crowds gather and douse them with buckets of water (https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-york-police-pelted-objects-drenched-water-video-reprehensible).


On July 1, Dante DeBlasio, the 21-year-old son of New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio, penned an op-ed which appeared in USA Today. He recounted his visit to San Francisco at age 18:

"I ... found myself walking through a neighborhood called the Tenderloin. All the storefront windows had bars on them, there was a man on one street yelling at passersby, trying to goad them into a fight, and homeless people were openly doing hard drugs on the sidewalk. But honestly, I wasn’t that scared. I was from Brooklyn, and I truly believed that I knew how to carry myself well enough not to be messed with. And due to the sheer force of my confidence, nobody messed with me (it also probably doesn’t hurt to be 6’3”)."

He eventually arrived at his friend's home. "In fact, the only time I felt fear during that entire night was at the very end of the walk ... at the keypad outside my family friend’s apartment building. My hosts had texted me the code ... but there were no instructions, so I was just standing there with my suitcase and ... pressing different buttons.

"I had been standing there for about 10 minutes when a police cruiser slowly rolled down the empty block. I figured it must be heading somewhere else but, no, it pulled over right in front of me. For years, I had been aware of the fear I caused as a young black man -- I had seen people cross the street to avoid me, I had been followed around stores -- yet I could still hardly believe someone thought that I was trying to break into a home. But ... somebody had called the police on me."

Dante is a mixed-race person. His wariness of the police is understandable. By the time he was in eighth grade, he had been instructed by his father and cousins to be extra-polite and deliberate when addressing police officers; not funny or casual. He also had been cautioned to avoid sudden movements, back-talking, or reaching for anything without first telling the officer what he was about to do. He was warned that small mistakes could result in his being arrested or even shot.

These were commonsense instructions. My dad told me essentially the same thing. But while being wary or respectful when confronted by a policeman is acting with commonsense, dousing officers, chanting that you want dead cops, assaulting officers or murdering them are all acts animated by hatred.


Drive the police out of your neighborhood; then what? Who will intervene to stop wife beating or the armed robbery at the 7-Eleven? Or keep the drug dealers and gang-bangers from selling cocaine at your front door? Or stop street gangs from shooting it out outside your home?

Read again Dante's description of the Tenderloin District. Do you want to live in a town with all home and business windows barred? Where thugs on the street goad passersby to fight? Where the homeless are openly doing hard drugs on every corner?

Is living in a Tenderloin District as described by Dante preferable to treating police officers with civility? What if officers refuse to come when you really need them?

Nine people were murdered in Dayton in the 32 seconds before the police killed the killer. How many more would have died had there been no police?

And now six officers were shot in Philadelphia, while the crowd taunted, and yelled at officers who were facing gunfire, according to CBS3 reporter Alexandria Hoff who was at the scene. (https://www.newsweek.com/philadelphia-shooting-crowd-taunted-police-report-1454473).


Posted: QCOline.com   August 22, 2019
Copyright 2019, John Donald O'Shea

Is Trump a "Racist?" Ask Media, any Democrat.

How would you like to be called a racist? Every day. Hundreds of times a day.

The Mueller coup having failed, Democrats have a new strategy: call President Donald Trump a racist.

On July 16, a Mike Brest/Washington Examiner article appeared captioned "CNN, MSNBC combine to call Trump or his tweets 'racist' more than 1,000 times since Sunday, July 14, 2019."

Why? Because in a three-tweet thread Sunday morning, the president told Democrat/Socialist Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ihan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley to go back to their countries of origin to help them if they are unhappy with the United States.

Over two days, CNN called the president a racist 636 times; MSNBC, 471 times. But would Democrats reaction have been any different if the president had said "as American citizens, these congresswomen have an absolute right to emigrate to any country they believe to be is better?" Would he not still have been labeled racist.


Today anybody the left disagrees with is labeled a racist, including, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Vice President Joe Biden, Thomas Jefferson, and anybody who voted for Trump.


Then, when Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings took a verbal punch at the Border Patrol and it facilities, the president launched a three-tweet counter-punch on July 27:

-- "Rep, Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA."

-- "As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cummings District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place."

-- "Why is so much money sent to the Elijah Cummings district when it is considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States. No human being would want to live there. Where is all this money going?"

Not unexpectedly, the president was quickly labeled a racist by Cummings, Al Sharpton, Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O'Rourke, Bernie Sanders and every other Democrat on the planet. But is Baltimore really a rat-infested, mess?

Watch: https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/rat-runs-through-baltimore-tv-reporters-live-report.


Is it a dangerous mess? Baltimore has the highest crime rate among America's 30 largest cities, the second highest violent crime rate, and the highest murder rate with more than 50 homicides per 100,000 people. These facts are not being denied by the Democrats. So, can the president fairly call Baltimore "dangerous?"

And while the New York Times calls Trump a racist every chance it gets, consider what it has previously said. In May, the New York Times Magazine described the "Tragedy of Baltimore," decrying the 2015 post-Freddie Gray riots as “nothing less than a failure of order and governance the likes of which few American cities have seen in years.”

Has Cummings ever said Baltimore was "dangerous," or "infested?" Yup, in 1999: "This morning, I left my community of Baltimore -- a drug-infested area where ... the drugs ... have already taken the lives of so many children. The same children that I watched 14 or 15 years ago as they grew up, now walking around like zombies."

Why is it racist to say Baltimore is "rat and rodent infested" but not racist to say is is "drug infested?"


Sanders was also quick to label Trump a racist for his Baltimore tweets. But read what Sanders said about Baltimore in 2015: "The fact is that American is the wealthiest country in the history of the world, but anyone who took the walk that we took ... would think you were in a third world country. ... Half of the people don't have jobs. ... hundreds of buildings that are uninhabitable. ... kids are unable to go to schools that are decent."

So why is it racist to say Baltimore is a mismanaged, dangerous rat-infest city, but not racist to say Baltimore is a drug-infested city that looks like a third world country, where kids look like zombies, half the people are unemployed, hundreds of buildings are uninhabitable, and the schools aren't decent?


Could there be a double standard afoot? Why hasn't CNN called Elijah or Bernie a racist 636 times over two days?

You wonder why the president tweets? If you were accused of racism, would you take it? Are CNN and MSNBC going to defend him? If he plays the piñata, won't the allegations be taken as true by half the country?

Posted: QCOline.com   August 15, 2019
Copyright 2019, John Donald O'Shea

How to Destroy America's Great Cities

What's the best way to destroy a great city?


A retired colleague recently sent me a May 28, 2018 internet article published by CWBChicago, captioned "Downtown: Overworked cops battling Mag Mile (Magnificent Mile) fights, mayhem through weekend."


Along with the article, my colleague advised that he was "unable to offer a workable solution that would be consistent with due process or any other measure allowed under our law." He asked for my solution.


My first question was, what is CWBChicago?


The CWBChicago states that it is an organization "created in 2013 by five residents of Wrigleyville and Boystown, fed up with the inaccurate information provided at local Community Policing (CAPS) meetings. ... robberies in our neighborhood had been soaring. Yet city representatives at CAPS meetings continually claimed that crime was going down."


That article details some 64 police calls over the May 28, 2018 Memorial Day weekend: e.g., Saturday: 8:39 p.m. -- 70 or 80 teens coming off the Chicago Red Line. “Tell Water Tower to close their doors; otherwise, they gotta let ‘em in;” 8:42 p.m. -- Fights behind the historic Water Tower. Crowd: 200 people, per dispatcher; 8:44 p.m., -- “Water Tower is closed. There’s one door open so people can exit.”


That same article contains internet links to four videos showing graphic mob violence perpetrated by youthful gangs along and about the Magnificent Mile or Michigan Avenue, from the Chicago River to Oak Street. It is Chicago’s premier commercial district and home to upscale shops, luxe fashion outlets, fine restaurants, posh hotels, as well as the historic Chicago Water Tower, Tribune Tower, the Wrigley Building and John Hancock Center.


So what is my solution? Frankly, I haven't got one. At least not one consistent with our traditional notions of due process, and the Eighth Amendment prohibitions of "cruel and unusual punishment."


Our judicial system is simply not equipped to deal with mob violence. If you arrest the 200 people engaged in the fight behind Water Tower, and each demands a jury trial, the system grinds to a halt.

Each defendant will claim indigence, and 200 lawyers will have to be appointed. And each attorney will file a blizzard of motions to defend his client. Each attorney will have to interview all named witnesses, and confer with his client.


Assuming each attorney spends just 50 hours defending his client and is paid $50 per hour for his services, the county will receive bills totaling $500,000 for attorneys fees. If the attorneys are paid $100 per hour, double that.


If convicted, probation will do virtually nothing to deter future violence. Imprisonment will at least deter the criminal from engaging in mob violence during the period of his imprisonment, but at an annual cost of about $38,000 to the taxpayers.


"Boot camp" costs about half as much. But the National Institute of Justice says that while the camps generally produce some positive behavioral changes, "these changes did not translate into reduced recidivism." 

My friend says he once thought that putting them in the army might be a solution. "From my experience in Vietnam (as a line officer), I came to the rapid conclusion based on experience that placing these little (expletive deleted) in the military is about the worst conceivable idea ever placed in my pea-sized brain," he said, adding, "Individuals who are screw-offs in the civilian world are even bigger screw-offs in the military where they have access to even more powerful weapons than they carried in the real world. In combat, having even one of these jerks in your unit provided a risk that their action or failure to act would get someone wounded or killed."


So short of providing every street cop with a cat-o'-nine tails, and authorizing him to mete out clearly unconstitutional summary justice on the spot, I have no workable solution.


When you couple this gang violence, with the decriminalization of shoplifting of loot valued at less than $950 (e.g. California), toleration of tent cities for the homeless such as those in the heart of Los Angeles, and when you provide free drugs and needles to addicts, you have the perfect recipe for the destruction of taxpaying business districts in America's great cities.


And you can easily accelerate the destruction by instructing your police to stand down while Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and street gangs destroy business districts and terrorize shoppers, store owners and employees, without police intervention.


Simply put, who in their right mind wants to shop where he has to navigate makeshift tents, strewn garbage, discarded needles, and shoplifters, all the while avoiding violent street gangs and Antifa violence?

Posted: QCOline.com   August 8, 2019

Copyright 2019, John Donald O'Shea