In the nearly 22 years I was with the NYPD I went to more police funerals than I care to try to remember. Aside from the unreal number of funerals I went to for those who perished during 9/11 (when even the police haters liked us for a hot minute), I have been to funerals for those who have been killed in the line of duty and those officers who unfortunately took their own lives as a result of breaking under the immense pressure of the job and things in their personal lives. The last one I attended was in December of 2011 when NYPD Police Officer Peter Figoski (who had 22 years on at that time) interrupted a burglary in progress with his partner in Brooklyn. The mutant committing this crime (in his long career as a criminal) shot Officer Figoski in the face killing him almost instantly. Generally when police get killed it is in an extremely violent encounter as they are doing their jobs, protecting citizens and property as they are commissioned to do. I call criminals of this level of mayhem mutants because I don’t want to insult animals (as an animal lover) by calling them “animals”.
The assassinations of NYPD Police Officers Raphael Ramos and Police Officer Wenjain Liu on December 20th, 2014 on a Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn street are exceptionally disturbing on a number of levels. Of course the fact that it was a double homicide in itself is disturbing, especially falling on the beginning of the Christmas holiday week which adds insult to injury. What makes it most disturbing was that these officers, in the attempt to make some extra money for their families, were working an overtime shift as part of what’s known as “CRV” which is a series of “critical response vehicles” primarily designed to work as an additional counter-terrorism unit to respond to high profile, top threatened areas of all five boroughs of New York City. The “CRV” they were part of were actually reassigned to work in an area of Brooklyn which has the highest number of crimes recently as a physical deterrent to prevent new crimes from occurring. So they were there trying to keep community members safe to go about their daily lives with a little less fear of being robbed, raped, or beaten by lowly holiday “opportunists”. These officers were on a break, in their patrol car. Not taking any enforcement action. Not stopping and frisking anyone. Nothing. They were shot, point blank, through the car window, with no warning, by a crazed, career criminal (Ismaaiyl Brinsley) who had driven up from Maryland after shooting his ex-girlfriend and then posting on Instagram that he was going to “I’m putting wings on a pigs today”, ” They take 1 of ours…let’s take 2 of theirs” followed by hashtags ShootThePolice, RIPErivGarner, and RIPMikeBrown. So the officers unaware of the mortal threat by this crazed coward did not even have the chance to defend themselves. The killer Brinsley, then ran into a nearby subway station where he shot himself dead and rid society of another career criminal and murderous maniac to not have to feed, clothe, and bathe with our tax money for the rest of his miserable life.
The fact that this career criminal was out freely walking around the streets of ANY neighborhood is sickening to begin with as he was a total menace to society. What should be considered by the police haters is that this guy seemed to come to the conclusion that he was going to be some kind of martyr for the cause. A number of anti-police / anti-NYPD posts on social media following the shooting have corroborated that (which I refuse to post and give them any additional air time due to their callousness and stupidity). As I have said before I know police are not perfect, and that there are laws on the books that the police are ORDERED to follow and enforce, and that people want to protest in order to make progressive changes to amend those outdated or unfair laws, and/or to push for increased training for police to make them more user friendly. That is great and I fully support that. What I do not support are throngs of anarchists marching in an emotionally charged protest advocating “What do we want- DEAD COPS ! When do we want it ? NOW !”.
Really? That is peaceful? That is the antithesis of peace when you are advocating death isn’t it? It not only is of the highest threat level to police, but it is unbelievably hypocritical and immediately negates the legitimacy of those protesters. When you have people ( like Brinsley) who are clearly a few sandwiches short of a picnic, and running around with weapons who see and hear this type of mass rhetoric, coupled with a life of crime under their belt, coupled with a mayor and city council speaker who have been passive at best and lukewarm in their support of the police it creates a perfect storm of tragedy and thats what occurred on December 20th, 2014 in Brooklyn.
Remember, police are sworn and duty bound to follow police procedure and enforce laws and many times are pressured to enforce laws that ELECTED POLITICIANS put into place which may be unfair or unjust. The NY Post broke a story on December 16th, 2014, 4 days before the execution in Brooklyn of the officers about a law that the Mayor DeBlasio of NYC was quietly trying to put into place (during the same week that the Eric Garner jury verdict came out) to further crack down on sellers of untaxed cigarettes. This is a mayor (and city council) desperate to wash their hands of blood regarding that incident because they know the laws they put on the books are the ones they direct the police to enforce which is the reason why that interaction even occurred that day in Staten Island to begin with. Otherwise the cops could give a rats ass about someone selling “untaxed” cigarettes, (they have bigger fish to fry) but it puts the cops in the middle, as usual as scapegoats. They go and enforce a stupid law (due to direct pressure and orders from the elected officials and their commanders), they interact with a person like Eric Garner ( another career criminal who happened to be in extremely bad health) who then refuses to be arrested for the 30th something time forcing the officers to have to use physical force to arrest him, which creates a shitshow and ending with what we now with the awful death of Mr. Garner ( which no one was happy about ).
Anyone with a soul and an ounce of common sense who is truly fighting for the black or any other oppressed community should be horrified at what happened to these young NYPD police officers in Brooklyn. One a newlywed and the other a father of 2 boys, both getting ready to celebrate the holidays with their families and now their families having to prepare funerals for them. Sickening. The way to change laws, and/or reform police is to advocate making changes to the elected officials who put those laws in place and have authority to order the police commissioner to enact policy changes. This can be done in a number of ways other than attacking or killing police officers. When people talk about the negative connotations of “the thin blue line” of police, think about the thin blue line as the line the police are holding between having a functional, free, and safe society versus a society of anarchy which some would love nothing better to see, and I’m not just talking about ISIS, I’m talking about those “Americans” who get off on watching the world burn. We can do better, so let’s get started.
