TO THE EDITOR:
It seems, lately, that our law enforcement policies and protocols are very often being shaped to accommodate thugs and criminals more than a lawful society. Very often now, when there is a fatal shooting by police, it is the criminal who is instantly cast as the victim, and the police officer as the villain. Never mind the facts. Forget a thorough investigation, and due process, and truthful outcomes. And, forget about the criminal act which initiated the entire situation, in the first place. Never mind all of that. "The cop did it!" is, too often, the first outcry.
And that, then, becomes the superseding narrative picked up and pushed by the leftist media at the behest of the political left, to the overflowing joy of criminals, thugs, anarchists, and anti-America "pot stirrers." And, as the momentum of this smoke-and-mirrors con builds, pandering politicians and officials cave, increasingly tying the hands and diminishing the ability of our police to maintain law and order. Thus, our society moves ever closer to a toothless, Bill de Blasio kind of policing, which eventually amounts to no "quality of life" policing at all hello, New York City. So, we put already well-trained officers, whose ranks have already begun to shrink, through additional "non-sense" training. And, we do it, only to satisfy the political left, who, it would seem, will never be satisfied until criminals can commit crimes with impunity.
And, when this craziness has run its course. When our communities are widely and vividly unsafe. And, when we start to really reap the pain of this stupidity. It won't be "shame on them." It will be "shame on us, for choosing to go down this "rabbit hole" with the political left.
However, a better ending to this contrived, Chicken Little, "the sky is falling!" crisis of police brutality and an unfair American criminal justice system would be to merely do what a healthy republic should always do. Continue to simply rely on our already well-vetted and long-proven system of laws to make and keep us, an honest and just people. The sky is not falling.
Larry Burnett
Texarkana, Ark.