JUST THE FACTS is an editorial written by Sam Cabral, President of the International Union of Police Associations, republished here, in its entirety and unedited, with the express permission of Dennis Slocumb, Legislative Director, International Union of Police Associations, AFL-CIO.
I hear the hand wringing lament of political figures and the news media about the broad distrust of America’s Law Enforcement Officers. The fact is this is simply untrue. According to a Gallup Poll, conducted in December of 2020, your American Law Enforcement Officer is the fifth most trusted profession in this great nation.
This drone of rhetoric, shouted by a vocal minority and repeated by a dishonest media as well as some political figures, is intended to divide this nation and is not helpful to the public or to the men and women who suit up every day to protect their communities.
Today, our officers are responding to events for which they have not been sufficiently trained. They are called for mental health cases, homeless issues, fires, floods, and earthquakes. They encounter people daily who are ill, drunk, enraged, or experiencing some traumatic event for which they are unprepared. Our officers respond to these events and ALMOST ALWAYS, resolve the issue successfully. When we do not, we are on the front page and the lead story on CNN.
We certainly acknowledge that there are bad cops and no one wants them removed from the profession more than good cops. We also know that outliers exist in every profession from the priesthood to our schoolteachers. Those few must be weeded out and removed. We also believe that we, along with every American, have the presumption of innocence and the right to due process to determine guilt. We defend that process for our members. If, after a thorough investigation and presentation of evidence, the preponderance of which indicates a person’s abandonment of our oath, we are happy to see them leave our ranks. We also support the notion that they should not be employed as a law enforcement officer in another jurisdiction.
According to the FBI, our officers make about ten million arrests each year, including more than 500,000 for violent crimes.
Almost all of these arrests result in no use of force. In those cases where force is necessary, it is almost always due to resistance by the suspect being arrested; that resistance dictates the level of force. Therefore, it is the subject being taken into custody, who determines the necessity for any level of force.
As the American Law Enforcement Officer continues to be vilified, they have substantially decreased their self-generated crime suppression activities. They do not wish to be the lead story on CNN or featured in the next YouTube video in the event of a violent confrontation with a criminal. Traffic stops have been discouraged and have decreased. Many self-generated arrests come as a result of these traffic stops. Guns, likely to be used in a crime, are discovered and seized as those in unlawful possession of them are taken into custody – before they are used in a crime. In Columbus, Ohio, it has been reported that as traffic stops decreased by 80%, the murder rate increased by 75%.
Major cities across this country saw a 33% increase in homicides so far this year.
Police Officers are retiring at an alarming rate and recruitment is down significantly. Cities and counties, still facing fiscal challenges brought about by the pandemic, are now paying overtime to staff their departments. Many have reduced greatly, the types of events they will respond to. None of this bodes well for the public’s safety.
The most basic role of government is the protection of its residents. Many people in inner cities are still putting their children to bed in cast iron bathtubs to protect them from random gunfire. It does not have to be that way. We can all do better.
Law enforcement has to work with the communities AND, the communities have to work with us, to find a path forward absent the venomous attacks from a loud few.
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NOTE:
Originally chartered in 1979, the International Union of Police Associations is the only chartered labor union that exclusively represents law enforcement personnel. The I.U.P.A. represents active-duty, rank and file law enforcement professionals and emergency medical personnel nationwide – including the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The I.U.P.A.’s mission is to protect and advance officers’ wages, benefits, and work conditions. Membership includes officers from agencies throughout the United States, including the U.S. territories in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. More information is available at www.iupa.org.
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Thank you for reading my blog. I hope you will share it with your family and friends.
THANKS DANNY
You are very welcome!
Right on Danny and Friends. It’s about time we return to the “good old days” when
police officers were our friends and we looked UP to them and NOT down at them.
We need police or else chaos and crime will rule as it did in the old west.
If you hate the police so much don’t call them when you have a problem. Call your
local politician who wants to defund and/or eliminate the police all together. That
politician will have plenty of gun power protecting him/her so you will be very safe
when he or she responds to you needs. They do not practice what the preach.
You are so right. Thank you!
People, the public, ultimately end up with the law enforcement (or non-enforcement) they DESERVE.
Homicide rates up in big cities. Oh well. If that’s what they want (as evidenced by the voters in the big cities)…..THAT’S what they get.
The choice of politicians is no different than any other choices in life….the worse the choice, the worse the results.
Cops, whether they be white, black, brown, yellow or red, aren’t going to continue to take foolish risks. And now, particularly in the big cities controlled by progressives, it would indeed be foolish to significantly increase the odds of being terminated or sent to prison for continuing to be PROACTIVE and engage in CRIME PREVENTION.
Cops may not be rocket scientists, but they aren’t imbeciles either.
Big city cops have done the risk assessment. They realize it would indeed be foolish to be an aggressive, proactive crime fighter in their specific environment, under their specific city’s leaders.
People either want aggressive, proactive crimefiighters patrolling the streets of their cities……or they don’t. They may say they want crime prevention, but their ACTIONS (thru voting, protesting, getting on board with BLM, etc.) SHOW the exact opposite.
So they get the exact opposite.
Then they sing the blues about it.
No sympathy from me. I’m done being emotionally drained because THEY can’t (or won’t) connect the dots.
It’s really pretty simple.
CHUMPS DON’T WANT NO HELP……CHUMPS DON’T GET NO HELP !!!
Yes, I understand that’s harsh. I understand it seems uncaring. I understand it seems extremely cold and calloused.
Reality is often like that. That’s why the term “harsh reality” is used so often.
A good dose of reality. Thanks, pard.
Police and deputies have always been called upon to handle matters they have limited knowledge of. At the end of a call they would often tell the citizen “That’s a civil matter”. I was called to teach a course to officers, old and new, about civil process and thought that they would be bored out of their skulls. It covered restraining orders, evictions, repossessions, civil warrants, etc. The class questioned me for an hour after with many finding out they handled certain cases wrong or right. The course became part of the curriculum. That was in the 70’s. Gilbert and Sullivan wrote “A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.” They were right.
They were right, indeed. Thanks, Jim.
I see the way people are being indoctrinated by Hollywood and the news media it makes me sad but it shouldn’t surprise me it has always been that way. Look what the Romans and the jews treated the Lord. You can go back in history they make heroes of criminals. Build statues to them and excuse their actions because they were forced to do what they did etc.
Very true, Bill. Thank you.
There are lots of good points in this editorial that the liberal and biased politicians and news media don’t want anyone to hear. Nationwide we’re experiencing the loss police officers killed in the line of duty at an alarming rate. It’s something like one a day since the beginning of the year. I only hope our nation wakes up and sees the light before it’s too late.
I agree, Mike. Thank you.
Truer words haven’t been spoken! It’s hard to watch the destruction of our profession at the hands of the Media and the Left….
Yessir, it is. Thanks, Scotty.
There are bad people in every profession, including politics, not just law enforcement. When mental health centers and hospitals, including mental wards in hospitals, were closed decades ago, where were policemen supposed to take obviously mentally ill people? That’s still a serious problem. They closed centers for the mentally retarded and mentally ill atc bout the same time. My husband was a cop. They deal with the unimaginable every day and are lucky to be alive at the end of many of those days. Most politicians would probably be horrified and/or terrified to do ride-alongs with police in major cities for a month. Many don’t understand. It’s too bad it is what it is now.
It is very disappointing where we’ve gone. Thank you.