CLOSING ARGUMENTS
There’ s a thin line between civilization and savagery … and that line is blue
BILL SPADEA
Every Friday on my morning radio show on New Jersey 101.5 FM, I dedicate time to honor men and women in law enforcement. My goal is to counter what seems like a cultural norm of spreading fear and hatred of law enforcement officers. Many Hollywood elites and groups like Black Lives Matter have pushed a narrative about police brutality that doesn’ t add up when you look at the facts and the sheer number of times law enforcement interacts with the public. Bottom line is that although there are prosecutable incidents, for the most part cops are out there every day, standing up for the community, solving problems and taking criminals off the streets.
Too many politicians and media personalities want Americans to believe that two equal sides are at play when reporting on police activity: on one side, people with legitimate grievances against police; on the other, the need to keep law enforcement officers safe. But the sides are not equal. To raise an incident that resulted in a man’ s death during an arrest to the level of the assassination of officers responding to a 911 call is inaccurate and wrong.
One is the criminal act of murdering someone because they wear a uniform. The other is a mistake based on circumstances. Prosecutors and grand jury decisions continue to reinforce that when someone dies as the result of police action, their death is a terrible accident. And more often than not, it is entirely justifiable.
Many activists in the Black Lives Matter movement would have you believe that racist, poorly trained cops are preying on innocent victims. That narrative is ludicrous and false. The second narrative, that bad cops don’ t face justice, is equally false. There are numerous examples of cops being charged and convicted after killing someone in the line of duty. Let’ s not forget the recent case of Michael Slager.
It’ s critical to put the issue in context. The nation has 900,000 law enforcement officers, who arrest more than 12 million people every year and make tens of millions of traffic stops. Think about their sheer volume of interaction. Questionable shootings and killings at the hands of the police are almost nonexistent from that perspective. Even The Washington Post, reporting on the 990 people killed by police in 2015, concluded that the overwhelming majority of those killed were armed and threatening police.
So when you look at the number of times an arrest makes national headlines because an officer is accused of misconduct or brutality, the percentage is infinitesimal. That’ s not to say that if someone dies it’ s not serious and shouldn’ t be investigated. However, when listening to the media, you’ d think cops were running rampant, trampling people’ s rights and killing based on skin color. That is simply not the case.
At the outset of # BlueFriday, I thought that if the media posted stories and gave them Ferguson-style coverage every time a
cop was killed in the line of duty, the narrative would change quickly. With a law enforcement officer dying on the job every 60 hours, there’ d be a story every couple of days. I thought we could change the narrative by focusing on the real work cops do and the critical support they offer our communities. We’ ve had some great honorees over the past few months, and I will continue to honor the brave people in law enforcement as long as I have a microphone.
Someone asked me to describe what I do on TV and radio.“ Simple,” I replied.“ Remember how your mom told you to never discuss politics, religion and race in polite company? On a daily basis, I like to cover all three, typically all at once.”
Several months ago, in a case of mistaken identity, officers chased a fifth-grader in Newark, guns drawn. They had been chasing an armed robber who eluded them, leading them to chase and confront the young man. It sparked an emotional social media post with a crying kid and mom. Initially, it sounds terrible. How could cops be so aggressive and wrong, mistaking a 10-year-old as the robbery suspect? When you look a little deeper, you learn the kid is large for his age, and after the police lost sight of the suspect, they saw a person running away from them. According to the boy and his family, he was playing basketball when his ball went into the street. He saw the officers running and assumed it was for him— for playing in the street— so he ran.
Thankfully, this didn’ t end badly. Remember when police in Cleveland killed Tamir Rice? The police were not charged because they had been called to the scene with a man waving a gun and, in the split second the officer had to make a decision, he fired at a kid holding a toy gun. Of course, the gun looked real and the officer had followed procedure. But you can’ t undo what happened, and a young life is gone.
The reaction from Black Lives Matter and its proponents has been an all-out attack on cops, going beyond specific incidents and using select facts that hide the true picture of law enforce-
84 NEW JERSEY COPS ■ APRIL 2017